


A Boy From Nowhere

by RBennet



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Littlefinger POV, Season 6 continued, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2018-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:04:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 120,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7424800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RBennet/pseuds/RBennet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The wrong ruler is on the Northern Throne, a bastard king with no patience for the subtleties of leadership. His sister sits beside him, placing her pieces and making her plays, thinking herself a master manipulator. Lord Baelish will let her, until the time comes for him to make his move. </p><p>But who is really fooling who now that winter has come?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> A version of what happens next, because there is a long time between now and Season 7.

How quickly life settles into normalcy, he thought.

How quickly people, these good, honest hard working folk, want to forget the troubles of their masters. They do not wish for war, or the death and famine that comes on its heels when lords and kings come to blows. A common man, with his common wife and common children, cares only for a good harvest and a bountiful month of labour to keep him and his own in food and cloth. A common man knows nothing of the great game. The same way a fly knows nothing of the life of the corpse it feeds from.

But without the corpse there would be no fly. 

~~~

The walls of Winterfell were steadfast once again, adorned with Stark banners on every conceivable surface, the wolves claiming back what was once theirs with pack-like fervour. Grey was such a drab colour, he thought, but befitting the Lord of this ancient pile of stones. The White Wolf himself seemed busy at work, making plans, plotting plots and brooding in dark corners with his monstrous pet. A living, growling sigil of this House forever by his side.

Lord Snow they called him. The King in the North.

Petyr had always admired a self-made man. And this one, this bastard Snow from Eddard Stark's most honourable loins, had made himself not only their fearless Northern warrior, but a legend among the living. If there were such thing as a minstrel at Winterfell – gods forbid anything as cheerful as music were heard within these walls – he would sing his songs day and night of the great and mythical Jon Snow: the tamer of savages, the only man to ever leave the Night's Watch with a head on his shoulders, a man fearless in battle against insurmountable odds and if some were to be believed (although he maintained his right to a healthy dose of Southern scepticism) a man risen from the dead.

So perhaps not even a man? Surely there must be precedent in the Seven Kingdoms, some side note on a by-law declared by a half-mad, half-blind Maester that ruled no dead man could ascend to a throne of power. But the great libraries of Old Town that held such things were far from his grasp, even before the debilitating blizzards had settled over the North like a blinding, white shroud.

Winter had come. 

Even if those words of this dour, grey house were not emblazoned on every dour, grey surface, one only had to look outside to know that they were true. The snows were thick and fast, and guards worked day and night to keep the courtyard clear, to ferry in heaps of supplies from the Northern liege lords, all back and warm within the fold. Lest they get buried in their wintry tomb.

And so it had come to pass, he was trapped in this house of wolves and wildlings until a break in the storms granted him passage back to the relative comfort of the Vale. It could be weeks or months or years. He did not mind, as long as it granted him the time he needed to move all of his pieces into place.

~~~

She did not trust him. Not anymore.

He had never been sure that any trust lay between them, not until he had already broken it into the shards of the woman that was now Sansa Stark. So what could he do with her now?

There were times, after he had rescued a shivering girl from the lion's claws and before she witnessed him sending her Aunt Lysa through the moon door, perhaps then she trusted him with the foolishness of a young maid. Then after, she trusted him with the bond of two who share a mutual goal, and her fiery need for revenge only fueled her dependence on him and his skills in manipulation. He coveted her. Sometimes he would fool himself; that those long looks, though tentative, young and unsure, were those of attraction. He would revel in her curiosity. He could have had her then without too much persuasion, he was quite sure.

But the moment he had promised her the North and delivered her into the hands of the Bolton bastard, he lost her trust as she lost the last ragged tatters of her innocence, and she began to see people as only tools in her quest for vengeance, another weapon in her armoury. He had watched her learn to play with that weapon like a Father wary of his heir with his first sharp blade. The young must learn, and to learn they must feel the weight of real steel to build their strength and flex their skills. But it is nerve-wracking nonetheless, as there is every chance that hubris and inexperience will lead to mistakes or to tragedy.

His own tragedy in his own youthful hubris, was now a literal scar that healed jagged and twisted over his heart. It pained him to this day, especially in the cold, but drew the line between the boy he was before and the man he became. That near mortal wound, won from his last attempt to follow the rules of court and congress, reminded him every day that his weapon could not be one that he wore at his hip. His armour had to be stronger than any steel, his army had to be his wits and his title must be a sigil of his own choosing.

He had learned. And so too would Sansa. But like a playful child with a weapon too large to balance and a helm slipping over her eyes, she was too eager to leap into this dangerous world. She thought herself cold but in truth there was still much of the girl who still wished for love. For her own happiness and a gallant saviour. It would be her greatest weakness.

His confession in the Godswood had not drawn that girl out quite as he had hoped, but still gave a glimmer of hope that she could be bended, just enough. It would take more tact. Her pleading missive to march the Knights of the Vale had sounded like forgiveness, and he delivered this gift with a promise that he would be rewarded in kind. A lure - her baited hook - and he had bitten, thinking he would have all he wanted in one reckless move.

He had let his vast imagination run away and neglected to secure what he wanted in return. To think it would be that easy to get her to forgive his betrayals and fall, pliant as river clay, into his arms. Foolish. No, it would not be that easy. But if there was one thing he relished, it was a challenge.

Because of course the most interesting part - of his game and his world and all these pieces that sat, laid out on this tapestry - is that rarely, so very rarely did things go to plan. No one can predict the future, no one can have complete control. Many people before him had tried, thinking power was a tangible thing that could be grasped with force and kept with fear. If only one could hold on long enough, with enough might and strength, the rest would fall into place. It was the way of Tywin Lannister, the way of the Baratheons, and it was a way doomed to failure.

No matter what, no matter how well crafted, well plotted or well enforced, plans would go astray. To succeed was to embrace the chaotic nature of man. The whims of this world.

Do not push a man, know how to move him.

In his embrace of this concept he very rarely made mistakes. But he was not infallible. To be infallible would take away all the fun of never knowing; desiccate the thrill of his victories. Often he would need to think quickly, move his pieces in an instant, sow seeds sooner or tend his plots later but most times these would come back around too. Often there would be times when those interwoven threads, the intricate plans and gentle lies, seemed to settle in a perfect pattern, as if guided by a hand of fate. Some more pious than he would say by the gods themselves, but he hated to give the gods credit for anything. 

Lysa's death was arguably a very large miscalculation, as he had not intended her to die quite so soon or at his own hands. 'Keep your hands clean': let there be enough steps between him and the crime for those who sought his guilt to get lost following the trail. However, this had turned unexpectedly on its heel when Sansa had revealed herself and in turn cleared his name in front of the Lords of the Vale. A large problem solved with little maneuvering. And the beginning of a woman he wanted to create in his own image.

Not knowing about Ramsay Bolton, however...

For that, she had been right: he was an idiot, a true fool underestimating a depraved man. And maybe the biggest mistake he had ever made if it meant losing the trust of Sansa Stark forever.

~~~

He dreamt of hair like fire, glistening in the sunlight. Pale skin and eyes so deeply blue that the rivers and seas themselves were envious. She ran down to the bank with her hands in her skirts and he followed like a loyal pup.

She ran too fast, disappearing around a bend in the track, the thick green leaves hiding her beauty from view.

_ Catelyn _ .

He tried to cry but the words refused to leave his throat. He tried to run faster but his legs were leaden.

The sky turned grey and the gods roared in thunderous rage, as icy sheets of rain fell from the heavens. The woods grew thick and before he knew it he had lost the safety of the path. Shadows moved between the trees. He could hear them breathing.

_ Catelyn. _

His scream this time, if it had surfaced at all, was drowned out by a clap of thunder.

The shadows moved closer, surrounding him on all sides. He reached for the dagger at his belt but as he pulled it out the fine gilded handle crumbled through his fingertips.

A figure moved from the darkness, striding towards him with a broadsword soaked with blood. The freezing rain turned to snow, piling up around him in drifts to his waist. The knight advanced, growing larger with every step, until he was impossibly tall and towering over his head. Somewhere, on the wind in the distance he could hear a woman's screams of agony, pleading with her captor.

The giant raised his great sword, bringing it down to slice through his chest, a perfect line of red from his collarbone to his navel. For a moment there was no pain and Petyr glanced down to see his heart beating, beating a bloody river out of his chest. The pain came then, and he fell backwards into the snow, darkening the pure white ground in a growing red pool.

The knight threw his sword down and moved over him, and Petyr could hear a low, mocking laughter reverberate inside the silver helm. The visor moved up and he met the shining eyes of Ramsay Bolton. As he bled out on the frozen ground, he could still hear her wrenching cries...

“No...no! Please...”

_ Sansa _ .

He woke, with her name on his lips.


	2. The Smallest Council

 

_ “...a terrible, green light, and a heat as if the skies themselves were melting...” _

Together they sat in front of the Great Hall's hearth, built large enough to hold a grown man. They were a mockery of a small council, able only to control events within the shivering walls of this frozen castle and miles from anything of any worth. Seven in total, since the return of Lady Brienne and her odd little squire.

Not unlike those wretched Seven faces, Petyr thought, we each play our role.

The council would meet once a day to discuss matters of the realm and where to focus their limited resources now that the longest winter in lifetimes was upon them. As a man used to the quick nature of politics and positioning in the capital, with an ear in every room and eyes in every great house, he felt oddly impotent. His connections now had dwindled to a handful of ravens and a smattering of paid men he had secured throughout the houses in the North.

_ “...The Queen has run mad...” _

News from the South had become increasingly dire, and the hearsay of the men sailing into White Harbour was that of an abominable cull in the House of the Gods. Cersei had named herself Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, forsaking the laws of succession and crowning herself in Lannister gold. The great King's Landing port was now shut up tight, allowing no one through the gates without special dispensation. Might the Queen hold a whole city to ransom? Who knew how much more wildfire lay beneath the feet of innocent men and women.

_ “...a fortress of death...” _

The Tyrell line was now reduced to a spinster and a cripple, the rest of their House now laid upon a fanatical faith uprising burned to ash in its own temple. Cersei had never been one for subtlety or forethought but her methods were certainly effective in the short term. Her downfall would be in her underestimation of what remained of House Tyrell – Olenna was a mistress of subterfuge that rivaled himself, and Willas was, by all accounts, a wise man who had not only inherited the shrewd nature of his Grandmother but now the Lordship of Highgarden.

_ “...a thousand ships full of reavers and rapists...” _

The second enemy soon to be at their gates bore deep scars upon House Stark. Euron Greyjoy had taken command of a vast Ironborn fleet and had begun tearing a swathe of destruction down the Western coast of the land. News came in the form of panicked letters and half-starved riders to tell of ships so numerous that they blocked the waves from view. These men were not men, they gasped, but beasts starved of sanity who would see no reason and hear no pleas of mercy. Whole towns razed to the ground, entire generations of families wiped out, only those who fled able to tell of the horrors that came from the sea.

_ “...truly a time of great suffering...” _

It appeared as though Euron was heading South, though to what end, no one could say. Parley with an Ironborn was like trying to reason with the ocean itself. Only time would temper a storm, and they could only hope that this tempest would blow itself out.

_ “...cooked in a pie, throat slit by his own servant...” _

However, not all word from the South carried the threat of their impending demise. Certainly there was a grim satisfaction at Winterfell when the news of Lord Frey's death filtered through the ranks. The soldiers took it as a cause for celebration, taking the time to build an effigy of the old man of twigs and sack cloth stuffed with horse dung. It was crass. But even Petyr had to admit to feeling a warm sense of justice bubbling in low in his stomach as the men burned Cat's murderer. He hoped the old man had felt just as alone, just as betrayed, seeing what remained of his sons ground into gristly meat.

_ “...the vengeful spirit of Robb Stark...” _

The tales that were coming out of the Twins were jumbled and confused, and it seemed many of the Frey's relatives had fled the castle in fear for their lives leaving a small and under-equipped garrison of Lannister men. It was an opportunity that should not be missed to gain a foothold in the South, he urged, time to move on the Riverlands and rebuild an old alliance of Tully and Stark.

But his words went unheeded against the darker concerns on the King's mind.

_ “...when they come, I only pray the wall will hold...” _

Winter was coming and it had a monstrous face.

Snow's pervasive fear of White Walkers and dead men coming to topple the wall sounded to Petyr like the tales that parents spin their children to get them to eat their bitter greens. “Be good, or the Others will come and turn you to ice,” they would say and the good little child would scoff down his plate for fear of corpses and ancient ghouls in the night.

But the Wildling man that sat the council table was as fervent as their King and his fear just as rich. Death was upon them. These creatures were coming, they said with an empty look of horror behind the eyes, and it will be the end of all of us. The tales from the remaining wilding force who had been at Hardhome, a place of terror and dread, had moved through the castle like the creeping winter cold. More than once Petyr overheard the whispers of men, brave Knights of the Vale, trading stories of the dead walking south in a horde that would outnumber the people of Westeros ten to one. An army, they said in tones hushed and urgent like the winds that pushed against the battlements, that only grew larger with every soul they took.

_ “...how can we hope to wage war against such an unnatural thing...” _

{the garland}

The Lady Sansa kept her distance since that day in the Godswood, and Petyr had kept his. Let her think he was plotting, let her spin herself into a frenzy of worry that any day now he would put a knife in her brother's back. It was to his advantage right now that she distrust him. It was a manipulation he had used well over the years, and there would be a delicious irony that it had been the same strategy that he had used to undermine her father, Ned Stark.

It was important, so very crucial, that he moved her to a place where she would be desperate once again for his help. It was just as important that she feel as though she were moving the pieces herself.

His play with the Knights of the Vale had backfired due to his own arrogance. He had believed that the Lady Sansa's innate sense of fairness and that girlhood dream of chivalry would overcome her resentment of him. Petyr had walked into the Godswood, watching the snow fall through the blood red leaves of the heart tree onto cold, soft lips that he was  _ certain  _ would soon be pressed against his own in honourable gratitude.

He had walked out of that frigid place with a sense that the earth of the old gods had shifted beneath him, a reminder that this was a place he did not belong. A place he knew less than he thought. Perhaps he was ignorant of the Northern ways, all those strange traditions that they shared, the humourless bent of their speech, a by product of spending months on end in unfailing darkness and freezing winds.

The declaration of the new King, was certainly among one of those peculiarities.

Sansa had sat beside her brother as an equal, and left the table as his subject. Surely, Petyr thought, even through her immense distrust, that must sting a little. He had watched her face throughout the Lady Mormant's declaration of fealty and for a second there had been a sliver of hope in her eyes. A hope that the Stark the precocious girl talked of, was the one true Stark at left in Winterfell, not the bastard to her right. It was such a precious moment of hope that had been shuttered down quick, a reaction only he would have noticed among the crowd of braying men. He now only need capitalise on her irritation, on that seedling of jealousy. She cared for her brother no doubt, but the cracks in their bond were weak and it would take only small nudges from him to the right people, move the correct pieces, to make that bond brittle enough to break.

It would be so very simple. Sansa was a commodity now, a Lady with only the rights of any noble born woman – to be used for alliances, traded like harvest and livestock. She had the name of a noble and ancient House, and despite her two previously unsuccessful unions, she was young, beautiful and fertile. And if this hadn't occurred yet to those who sat around this worn table, advising His Grace on matters of their new realm, then it would be up to him to remind them.

{the rune'd man}

He found Lord Royce in the Great Hall after Snow had been declared King in the North. The brave Bronze Yohn, head of a proud House of the Vale, once one of the greatest tourney knights in the kingdom sat stoically in a corner of the great hall. His back ram-rod straight, a cup of ale untouched in his hands. The old man still wore his shining armour, even now amongst allies, the silver glittering in the candlelight of the great hall.

Royce eyed Petyr with suspicion as he approached, and pursed his lips. The older man was no fan of Littlefinger, an opinion he had made clear on many occasions, but he was sworn sword to Lord Arryn and the little lord had made his proclamation clear: Lord Baelish was to be obeyed in all things as Lord Protector of the Vale. Bronze Yohn was a proud man, but an honourable one, and would not outwardly oppose his liege Lord. That alone was not enough for Petyr to feel secure in his place at Winterfell.

True, he was in command of the largest army; the Knights of the Vale had suffered hardly a loss in the battle, and were now garrisoned as the protective force of this castle. However, now that winter was upon them, there would be time for that mutinous look in Lord Royce's eyes to fester into a resentment that could breed among the men. It would only take a few harsh weeks of meagre rations and empty ale cups to turn that resentment into a roiling discontent that had the potential to unseat an unwanted leader. Petyr's position was precarious at best, being only a hair’s breadth away from usurper.

Petyr's first order of unofficial business had been to inform the brothel owners of White Harbour of the sudden influx of valiant fighting men at Winterfell. The castle was occupied again and would be for the foreseeable future, with a startling overpopulation of men with no wives to keep them company through the cold winter nights. If they were smart, and in his experience whores after gold generally were, the girls would sail on the barges up the White Knife with the incoming party of serving folk from the contrite Lord Manderly. Happy men were loyal men, after all.

“My Lord,” Petyr greeted and was met with a nod from the old knight, “You don't seem to be enjoying the festivities. Tonight is a night for celebration, after all.” He helped himself to a cup of ale, and sat down opposite Lord Royce. He made a small show of toasting to Jon Snow, shaping the words, “The King in the North” with an ironic smile. Royce merely lifted his cup but remained silent, seeming to find more interest in watching a group of young Wildlings play a drinking game. Petyr watched for a moment with him, curious, but finding no rules other than the winner was the man who could take the hardest punch to the face and still remain conscious.

The look on Lord Royce's face was of pure contempt.

“Interesting culture they have,” Petyr remarked, keeping his tone bored as though he was merely filling the silence with small words.

“It's no culture. They're barbarians.”

“They are very loyal to our King.”

“Yes,” he scoffed, “Until the next one comes along, offering more lands to pillage, more of our women to rape...then we shall see how loyal savages can be.”

“You think our King a fool?”

Royce leveled his gaze, and leaned in close, “I think, Lord Baelish, that you think me a fool if you believe I will sit here and denounce the King in your presence.”

“Forgive me, my Lord, but you seem to think I am attempting to trick you in some way. I assure you, I am a loyal servant for the Lord Arryn and all the Knights of the Vale.”

“You are a loyal servant for no one but yourself,” he muttered into his cup, and took a long draw of ale.

Petyr smiled. “I have lead the Knights of the Vale to a great victory.”

The older man grimaced. “It would have been prudent to keep the Vale out of these matters. This was a careless move.” His eyes moved once again to the group of Wildlings, only a few still standing with bloody noses and blackened eyes. There was a smaller man, short and wiry who seemed to be doing better than his peers for his ability to quickly move into a blow so that it only glanced off his face. His hair stuck out in great orange tufts, not quite managing to cover his whole head. Petyr rather liked the look of him.

“Lord Arryn was insistent that we come to the Lady Sansa's aid,” he said pointedly, reminding Royce of his fealty. “You know how much he cares for her.”

But the older man only looked at him with scorn. “I very much fear it was the other way around.”

Petyr let his eyes slip to the high table, to the seat now empty, where Sansa had sat by her brother as he had been declared a King. Lord Royce looked triumphant but said nothing. With great care, he placed his still half-full cup on the table and pulled his great armoured bulk to standing. “Goodnight, my Lord,” he said without the courtesy of bowing, and left the hall.

Petyr watched the smallest Wildling, with the patchy red hair and skinny arms, slam his last opponent's face into the bench until he went limp and fell to the floor.

{the bastard king}

The King in the North, so proclaimed by a girl of ten namedays and old men, had attempted to eschew any notions of monarchy within his House. Lord Snow would do just fine, he said, and his dour, young face would pout all the more whenever the men said 'Your Grace'.

At once, he had named his council, calling each man into his position as the sun rose on Winterfell less than a week after the final battle. Petyr's own summons came, as he knew it would. As the man who had brought an army to his rescue, an army that now manned the battlements, it would be foolish to ignore his presence. This was to be his first audience alone with the new King.

Snow stood behind the high table, the Great Hall clear now of the revelry that the men were enjoying each night. The castle was in high spirits still, even with much work to be done, and the King was allowing his men time and means to prolong their victory. His great white wolf lay sleeping by the fire.

“I owe you thanks,” Snow began, the gratitude seeming to weigh heavy on his furred shoulders. “Without your help, we would not be standing here.”

“I was only following the Lord Arryn's orders, my lord. But I will be sure to pass on your regard.”

Snow paused, and looked Petyr from head to foot. “I have heard you are good with gold.” 

“The best, my lord.”

The answer did not seem to satisfy the boy as he turned and moved around the long table and down the dais to stand level with him on the flagstone. One hand lay gently on his sword hilt. The wolf did not stir. Snow pursed his lips before speaking. “Can I trust you, Lord Baelish?”

Here... here was the way in which the honourable Jon Snow would take the measure of a man. This weighing of intention, nobility and all the other rotten pillars of masculinity. Petyr knew that by those standards, he was sorely lacking. It was his greatest asset, though men like Snow often would confuse it for a weakness to their detriment.

“I will tell you something I told your father once,” he began, looking the boy in the eye, “not long after he came to King's Landing and found himself in a precarious situation.” Snow did not move, held still and silent so much like a those macabre statues in the Winterfell crypt. “I told him that he was smart not to trust me.”

“Then what use are you to me?”

Petyr offered his palms face up. “I am a skilled negotiator, and I know how men work. I have ears and eyes where you are blind. I can make gold to fill your coffers to the brim. I am very good at getting what I want.”

“And if what you want does not align with what I need.”

“Then feel free to dispense with me, my lord.”

“It wouldn't be honourable for me to kill a man who saved my life,” Snow pointed out as if discussing the weather and not an execution.

“No, I suppose it wouldn't,” he agreed.

“But you could leave, at any time. Nothing keeps you here.”

“The Lord Arryn has declared for House Stark, and I am his voice in the North.”

“Lord Royce says that the Lord Arryn is nothing but your puppet,” Snow said pointedly.

“Ah...yes, he has never liked me much.”

“He also believes your motives for remaining in Winterfell are less than honourable.” Petyr feigned confusion though had no illusions that Bronze Yohn would have taken great joy in painting him a salacious deviant. Snow looked away, as if attempting to find words he was comfortable with to explain. Petyr wondered if the boy was still a virgin, and perhaps if that may explain his near constant brooding. The boy clarified, “Your intentions towards Sansa.”

Petyr felt that familiar titillation of arriving at the place in this careful construction where he had intended to be all along and he gave Snow the courtesy of letting his mask of compliance slip. “If you are in any doubt as to my intentions towards the Lady Sansa, remember that, on her single call, I moved an entire army to her aid.” 

“To  _ her  _ aid?”

“Hers and hers alone.” He smirked at the appraising look on the young King's face. “Perhaps it is not my interests that you need to be concerned with.”

At that Snow broke into a uncharacteristic smile, or as close as could be described as the corners of his mouth tilted upwards and amusement danced behind his eyes. “I am not used to men like you. At the wall, my enemies were very forthright about wanting to kill me.”

“A much simpler place,” he agreed, “But if you wish to rule, you will have to become accustomed to even those closest to you wanting your head.”

Snow nodded. “Then I will allow you a seat on the small council, Lord Baelish, if only to keep you close.”

{the smuggler}

He let Ser Davos find him down in the dungeons, staring into the now empty cell that had seen Ramsay Bolton eaten alive by his own ravenous hounds. The walls and floors that had ran with the bastards blood were clean now, the remaining pieces of bone and viscera washed away, leaving no trace of the man's existence. This is how we all end eventually, he thought with morbid clarity, nothing but sustenance for the larger things that feed on us.

And now, what wonderful about-turn, as now the cells were storage space for the shipments of food arriving daily from various Houses across the North. They were the only part of the castle that did not benefit from the heated spring that flowed within the walls and thus served well to chill fresh meat and prisoners in equal measure. The newly minted Hand of the King, Ser Davos had been placed in charge of these precious winter stores. There were many men now at the castle that would rely on the proper care of these resources in the months ahead. A big responsibility, to be sure, but the older man had a knack for moving goods with efficiency. Lord Snow clearly trusted him.

To Petyr, the Onion Knight was an unknown quantity. Ser Davos was a man of much interest to him, as would any a man that had gained the ear of two Kings in his lifetime, a great accomplishment reserved for few throughout history, never mind a smuggler from Flea Bottom. To most, he was a contradiction in terms, and the stain of his past occupation would never wash clean in their eyes; to work under the cloak of darkness, to undermine the good, hard-working traders that made an honest living at every port, was to be the lowest of the low. In this realm where honour and valour was the merit of a man, to be a criminal in any sense, was a fundamental fault of character.

But Petyr had never been one to follow a traditional line of thought. There was honour among thieves, if you knew where to look.

“Lord Baelish. What can I do for you?” Petry watched Ser Davos gave a small, half-bow but it was awkward and unpractised. He was a man not used to kneeling to his betters, and rightly unsure if it even benefited him to do so. The older man looked at him steadily, perhaps with a hint of suspicion. It was unusual for anyone to be in the cells unless they were bringing in the crates, and that was a job for the soldiers and household, not a man like Petyr Baelish.

“Ser Davos, good evening. Forgive me, I was only stretching my legs.”

“A morbid place to take a stroll,” he said, gesturing to the empty cell. They both looked in and Petyr found himself wondering what the older man saw. For him it was a twisted picture of vengeance and shame, a cold, exposed place where he could not hide. In that cell lay a great miscalculation, the remnants of his worst mistake. A mistake now born into a woman too hard and brittle to bend to his will in the way he knew best. It reeked of his own failure.

“Yes. I imagine it was quite a sight.” Had he meant to sound so regretful? There was a spectre in these dungeons, he was sure.

“Only saw what was left. And heard the screams, of course,” Ser Davos looked at his stubbed hand, the half-fingers encased in leather. His voice was matter of fact. “Not a pleasant way to go.”

“I imagine you have seen worse in your time.”

The man nodded solemnly. “And then some.”

“Your expertise will be invaluable, I'm certain.”

Davos snorted, “Against mad queens and monsters? I wouldn't be so sure.”

“Not to mention the invading fleet of Ironborn,” Petyr added.

“Aye. We're fucked.”

They met each other's eyes and broke into matching smirks of amusement. At least some one in this dour castle had a sense of humour.

“How are the stores?” Petyr asked, genuinely interested.

“Enough, I reckon. And we'll have plenty still coming in until the river freezes over.” He scratched his grey chin with his shortened hand. “Even then it wouldn't be too difficult to fashion a sled, train some dogs...”

“You are a resourceful man.”

“From what I hear, so are you.”

He shrugged his well-clothed shoulder. “Practical, I like to think.”

Davos nodded distractedly in agreement, then he paused for a moment and blinked, before turning fully to Petyr and looking him level. “So...” he said, his voice light but full of implication, “...tell me...as a practical man, what kind of man will King Jon be?”

At this, Petyr only raised a brow, choosing the power of his silence. There were two possibilities that he could see. Was Davos genuinely curious of his opinion, and taking the opportunity of discourse away from the council table? Or, was he waiting for Petyr to out himself as a traitor to Snow?

The man, as they do, took the silence as a need for clarification. “I have served a King before, as you well know. And he served his Red Woman. And who she serves...well, it is no merciful deity, I can tell you that for true. I tried to be his voice of reason, and in the beginning before the wars, Stannis would heed good council. Sure, the man was not always the easiest to get a long with, like cracking japes to a log, but he was a good man. An honourable man.” It was easy to draw the comparisons between King Stannis and King Jon, Petyr thought, he wondered if Davos could see that picture being so close as he was to the canvas. “Then the Lord of Light entered our lives and I didn't see it coming – what was another religion for me to ignore? I saw the fanaticism, watched as he turned against his friends, family, liege lords as  _ she  _ named them heretics. Dark forces were at work,” he looked Petyr dead in the eye and there was a frank fear there, “and I am by no means speaking metaphorically here. She had a way of making things - terrible things - happen.”

Petyr could not help himself, it was as if he had been transported back in time to when he was a young boy and his father would tell him tales of harrowing creatures from beyond the narrow sea. “I was in Renly Baratheon's camp at the time he was murdered. I heard some strange tales…” He paused, watching the other man closely. “They said the King was slain by a shadow..."

Davos turned white, but his voice was steady. “Be as sceptical as you like, my Lord, but if I cannot trust what I see with my own eyes then what can I trust?” He shook his head. “I tried to warn Stannis of the high price of blood magic. Something so unnatural cannot be right. He stopped listening, probably a long time before I realised. So I tried to kill her - the Red Woman - and he threw me in a cell. I sabotaged his plot to murder an innocent boy, so Stannis threatened to execute me for treason. And you know the reason I am standing here?” Peter shook his head, unwilling to disturb the heavy silence of the man's tale. “ _ She _ stopped him. Said that I had a 'role to play' in the wars to come,” he chuckled, bitter at the irony, “And still...still I believed him. Even as he fell deeper and deeper into...” It was dark in cells so he couldn't be sure, but there may have been an edge of tears in the old man's eyes. “I lost my sons to his cause, yes, but they were men grown and both rallied to the cause willingly. I lost my full hand, but that was justice. I followed a man who burned his own daughter alive to win a battle, knowing full well what he was capable of. What kind of man does that make me?”

Petyr took a breath before answering, “We have all done regretful things in service of those higher. Even Kings have to answer to the Gods.” 

“You do not strike me as the type of man who has regrets.” Davos's tone was casual now, his demons vented into the cool, black air.

“No?” he said, turning once again to the cell and the older man's eyes followed his. “I am a man like any other.”

“Well, I'd say bringing an army to save our skins goes a long bloody way to making amends.”

“It's not forgiveness I am after,” he said, placing a hand on the bar closest to him. His fingers grasped the cold metal tightly, rings clanking softly in the stillness. He lowered his voice to an urgent whisper, willing Davos to hear his meaning. “I need to be certain she is safe.”

For a short time, the older man said nothing, only stared at the room that once held the mutilated corpse of Ramsay Bolton and surely plenty of other ghosts of the North besides. This castle was old, and held many secrets within her stones. Petyr thought that he would like to know those secrets, for how many times had men like him, men like Ser Davos, come to hide them in her depths?

When Davos spoke again, his voice was quiet. “Surely, she's safe here at Winterfell, with her brother.”

There was just enough uncertainty in the man's tone. 

He gave Davos a look, the barest flicker of a hesitation, before he answered. “Yes. Of course.”

Davos was a man who had seen how power corrupts, how rich men care only for more riches. He had been betrayed by a King before. He had been betrayed by men like Littlefinger too, but a businessman with no moral code was a lot less dangerous than a King who could not see right from wrong. Darkness from light. Books were written and songs were sung of the fate of realms that fell beneath an unjust ruler's feet and the innocent suffered most of all.

Ser Davos was a champion of innocence, that much was clear, but only because he was a good man who lived without the trappings of piety, or nobility or tradition. But he was also a reasonable man, pragmatic, a man not afraid to voice the unpopular opinion. A man not afraid to stand when commanded to kneel. Davos had seen the blackest side of a desperate man's grasp for power, and it had left a mark on his soul. He would not follow another King blindly, this one would have to earn his loyalty.

With a sigh, and a smile, Petyr released his hand that gripped the bar and adjusted the golden rings about his fingers. The Onion Knight watched him with a wry smile. “Don't go thinking this makes us friends now, Littlefinger. I know only too well what you are.”

Petyr's grin only widened, as he inclined his head and took his leave.

He decided he liked Ser Davos.

{the wildling}

The Wildling had taken to chasing whores and servant girls alike around the castle and its grounds, gnashing his great teeth after their skirts like a rabid, red dog. The savage thing had no concept of money, or the notion of consensual relations, and the more disgruntled ladies had pestered his own paying Knights to petition him, knowing which side their bread was buttered.

“He grabs the girls, m'lord, and won't pay a penny. He hasn't taken one yet, only cos he knows the White Wolf will punish him for raping. But his men, m'lord, they might not be so loyal.”

He had assured his knight that he would deal with the Wildlings and their rampant libidos and so fell into step with their imposing leader after the day's small council meeting. “Tormund, if I could have a moment of your time. There is a small matter I need to discuss.” The large man never spoke much at the King's meetings, and Petyr was unsure just how much he could follow. His heavy, barbaric brow would often sit low over his eyes, either in disapproval or confusion, his only interjections coming whenever talk turned to the threat north of the wall.

Tormund turned to him, his mouth, almost covered completely with wild red hair, formed a grimace.

“What do we need to discuss, little man?”

Petyr only smiled placidly. He had no mind to rile a wildling - he was quite fond of his face. He decided that actions would speak louder than words, and gestured for the Wildling to follow. He spoke as they walked across the courtyard. “I have noticed that you and your men are getting rather...restless. I have heard tell of several of your group attempting to force their affections where it is not wanted.”

Tormund looked puzzled, and Petyr feared he had been too indirect in his speech for the larger man to follow, but after a moment he replied, “My men do not take the women here. Lord Snow has ordered it. But my men have gone a long time without fucking. They are turning to fucking each other.” His frown indicated that he was displeased with this turn of events.

“There are women here who will give your men what they want,” Petyr replied.

“Those are the women that want gold, yes?”

"Among other things..."

“It is not right," Tormund spat. "Our way is to take what is ours.”

“I've never seen the appeal of an unwilling woman,” he mused.

Tormund barked with laughter. "Little man,  _ you  _ would never be able to take a Free Folk woman unwillingly."

Petyr only smiled once more and walked towards the stone outbuilding that leant against the south-eastern wall of the castle, with high windows and a short wooden door. Tormund looked at him with suspicion, so Petyr turned the latch himself and walked inside. The Wildling stooped after him, and when straightened again, there was a look of astonishment on his ruddy face.

The rooms in the outbuilding were where Petyr had decided to house the more expensive whores, some he had arranged to be brought from his now ruined establishment in King's Landing. The grey, cold walls were now draped in luxurious tapestries, the floor in soft rushes and the plump feather beds were resplendent with silk pillows. Three of his finest women were in various states of undress on a long, padded bench next to a roaring fire. Incense burned thick in the air, a sweet smell of Dornish spices. The tallest of the three, a dark-skinned beauty born on the Summer Isles, stood at their entrance, and curtsied as best a girl can without a skirt.

“Lord Baelish,” she simpered, and reached out for his hand, pulling him down to the seat by the hearth.

All at once the girls fell into their roles. One started to pull her hand through his neatened hair, her fingers clenching and unclenching against his scalp, her full lips coming to nibble at his ear. The second girl to his right with silky hair so blonde it was almost white, removed her flimsy top to expose full, youthful breasts, the rosy nipples taut, and began to slip her fingers beneath the clasps on his frock coat. The beauty from the Summer Isles had let go of his hand to kneel before him, and her graceful fingers stroked down his thighs.

This whole tableau was a show for the savage who surely had never seen the like, but he felt himself harden nonetheless as the girl on her knees pulled apart the ties to his breeches and slipped her dusky hands inside. He smirked and locked eyes with the Wildling as the hands and lips of three beautiful women moved across his body. Tormund was slowly turning pink.

“Your men hate the idea of fucking a willing woman, or paying for what you could freely take.” The girl to his right had her mouth on him now, tongue laving at his exposed chest. “It goes against how you've done things for centuries.” The girl between Petyr's legs pulled him free of his breeches and wrapped sure lips around the tip of his cock. Tormund let out a stifled groan. "I do not wish to interfere with tradition." The girl at his ear reached across him and began to stroke the blonde between her legs, and gentle notes of pleasure escaped her mouth. “But perhaps these girls could change your mind? They are very talented, as you can see.”

The large man's face was now indistinguishable from his hair, and Petyr could see the bulge in his breeches even through a layer of hide. Giantsbane, indeed.

“I have a proposal for you,” Petyr continued, keeping his voice quite steady even as the dark woman's head bobbed up and down on his cock, her naked quim bared to the Wildling man. “I will allow your men to use the services of these women and any of the others who take gold at Winterfell and I will foot the bill. Of course, you must ensure that no harm comes to any of them, or the King will have the man's head.”

Tormund tore his eyes away from the girls and growled. “I know of you, Lord Littlefinger, you are a one who like to make deals, yes?” Petyr nodded. “Then what is it you want in return?”

Petyr merely smiled and signalled to the girls to stop their attentions. With deft movements, he righted himself.

“I wish to prevent a situation where the King may be forced to execute one of your men for raping someone of import.” He gestured to the girls and at once they moved across the room and began to peel the layers from Tormund's heavy frame, one fur at a time. “I wish to ensure the continued unity of our people.” He fastened the last of his frock coat and secured his sigil. “It is no more than a gesture of good will.”

The Wildling started to speak but was now beyond the point of no return dressed only in his small clothes, his heavy brow now set in awe as the women pulled him to bedroom off the main room, dangling from his tree-like limbs. He took Tormund's stunned silence as an affirmation. The slow crescendo of congress began to filter from the room like a familiar song, and it made him feel nostalgic for the warmth and excitement of King's Landing.

It had been a long time since he had heard the beautiful music of submission. It had been even longer since he had indulged in his own whores. It was fine, he consoled himself, it was not like he had spilled his seed, an act he had swore long ago he would never do again unless it was within the soft, willing womb of a Tully woman. Still, he had felt a shiver of pleasure long suppressed with that warm, wet mouth on his manhood, and coupled with the power of taking down a man three time his size, well, it was a heady thing.

The grunts and cries in the next room started to rise in earnest. He took a heavy bag of coin from his pocket and dropped it on the hearth. Before he left he took a moment to straighten the silver mockingbird pin at his throat.

{the lady knight}

The Lady Brienne was whole bundle of contradictions, and what a tangle of ribbons for him to unravel. He relished a challenge, and the mountainous woman was certainly that.

There were rumours of a close relationship with none other than Jamie Lannister, a man who had up until this point in his life only had eyes for his dear, sweet sister. On his short stay at Winterfell last year, one of the Bolton's knights had recounted the bewildering tale of the Kingslayer launching himself into a bear pit to rescue Brienne, and how he demanded the Lady be released to his care for the sake of her virtue.

Looking at her, you would see no softness, no womanly wile, but there would be something there buried deep he was sure. There was a girl under that armour and her fierce eyes, with the way she defended her virtue with a long sword with the skill to rival that of the greatest knights of the realm. There was a girl who had been told all her life that she could not be a fierce warrior like the boys she outmatched with ease, but neither could she be a woman, for true women possessed grace and beauty and the Lady Brienne could boast neither.

Brienne the Beauty, a cruel name. And he could sympathise with cruel names.

The Lady Brienne had latched herself onto the Stark women as a gauge of honour, where he himself had used them as a measure of his successes and failures. He had no doubt that she would defend the Lady Sansa to her death, especially now that she had finally wrested the young girl from his evil grasp. The youngest Stark girl, Arya, had been glimpsed for a second and then lost, a failure that the Lady Brienne would have taken especially to heart. Because, yes, she would be soft hearted underneath all that steel.

Her distrust of Petyr was clear every second she spent in a room with him, her hand on her sword hilt as if ready to strike him down at the merest nod from Lady Sansa. She watched him with those small eyes, and her mouth would curl into a snarl at every word he said as if she disapproved of him even being allowed to speak in the Lady's presence.

Petyr pondered for the longest time what way she would move, this hulking beast of a woman with the heart of a maid, and in the end he decided that Brienne's motivations were settled in a place very close to his own. Her loyalty lay with Sansa, not the Starks or the bastard King. When he had met with her in Molestown, Sansa had brought her Lady Knight, and trusted no one else. Her concerns were for her charge's welfare above all else, and he was sure that Brienne would cut down even Jon Snow in her effort to keep her sacred oath. So in the end he did nothing, the wisest course.

He kept his distance from Sansa and therefore Lady Brienne. He made a point of polite greeting, eyes always averted and his tone always respectful. He was the perfect gentlemen courtier, giving not an inch of suspicion away. There was no way to erase the wrongs he had done to Sansa, and therefore in kind to Brienne of Tarth, but he certainly could be the least offensive option when the time came.

And the time was sure to come.

{the player}

So there they sat, seven men and women from all corners of the realm, at the table of the newest King in the oldest House in the North. And now they had a problem; news from the south carried into White Harbour and ridden to Winterfell in the night.

“Euron  _ Greyjoy _ ,” he said, the raven's letter unfurled in front of him containing information he already knew, “has joined the Queen's army?”

“That is the word from King's Landing. The harbour is full and the Iron born have sent a party to the Red Keep,” Snow replied.

“How do we know this?" Petyr asked.

“We sent a scout."

"Good thing they were not captured. Euron would see that as an act of war,” Lord Royce chided.

“I gave them some tips,” said Ser Davos with a wry smile, “And they happened upon a group of Ironborn in a brothel in Flea Bottom. A talkative bunch. They mentioned a marriage with a great House.”

“Surely he doesn't mean to marry Cersei Lannister?” Yohn Royce's face was a picture of purist disapproval. Yes, Cersei may have obliterated the King's court and demolished the great Sept of Baelor, she may have fucked her brother and placed their bastards on throne, she may have ignored the rightful lines of succession and named herself ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, but gods forbid a Lannister ever lower themselves to wed a  _ Greyjoy _ . It would be obscene.

“We have a problem.” The knight rubbed his beard with his stubbed fingers as he stated the obvious. “Two of our enemies are united against us.”

“She has control of King's Landing, or what's left of it, but the south is splintered. She needs support. It is a wise move on her part,” Petyr commented with a frown.

“Not to mention it would put our only lines of supply at risk,” said Lord Royce, turning pale. The White Knife was also the Vale's quickest way out of the frozen North if things turned sour. “With that many ships and a port on either side of Westeros, they could easily flank us from both coasts.”

At that, Tormund seemed to follow and slammed a ham-sized fist on the table. “We cannot fight these Iron born from the east and west and the White Walkers from the north!"

The table fell silent at the mention of the unspoken enemy, the mystical men with armies of the dead marching South to reclaim the lands in an unending winter. It was all very urgent, the way the wildlings spoke of these the Others, but there was a nine hundred foot wall between here and there, and the volatile combination of Ironborn reavers and a mad Queen was a far more pressing concern.

“We need ships and men in the South.” Jon's voice was quiet. “Either way, if we are going to put a stop to Cersei's reign or if we are going to fight Euron Greyjoy.”

“Dorne has ships,” suggested Royce, “and the Tyrells. Both have reason to want to take down Cersei.”

“And what can we offer them besides vengeance? At least Cersei has the wits to secure her ships with marriage.” He scoffed and his words were dismissive, but the seed would be sown in the fertile minds around the table, those he had cultivated like a caring farmer that knows he is due a bountiful harvest. Royce had his clear eyes on him, watching like a prey hawk for the tiniest mouse in a field of corn. Ser Davos worried his beard, his brows creased. The Wildling looked restless and bored with talk of lands and houses he knew nothing about. He dared not look at Sansa, for fear she would figure him all out at once, so he watched Brienne and her great, mopish face.

Snow seemed to mull, his jaw working like a cow chewing cud, his hands grasping the back of his great chair. After a moment, he nodded towards Petyr.

“We send a raven to both Dorne and Highgarden offering an alliance with the aim of taking down the wrongful Queen. Tell them they can name their terms as long as the North is protected. ”

He stood and bowed. “At once, my lord.”

Petyr risked a glance at the Lady Sansa before he left the room, and took great pleasure in her ashen stare.


	3. Our Alliances

 

The last time Petyr Baelish had seen winter he had been a minor Lord of an insignificant House, still grasping at the edges of any worldly worth. By the time the Great Summer arrived he had already made significant headway into securing his place with a talent for coin and a penchant for business. It had been a golden time. The prosperity flowed from his fingertips and into the Seven Kingdoms as fast as the wine flowed down King Robert's throat.

At each turn he would set himself a goal, the measure of his achievements. His first, to become prosperous, to never want for luxury again. The second, to achieve a rank within the King's courts. He acquired both with sure ease in a matter of years. But it was not enough. It never was.

So he turned his sights to titles and lands, to a legacy for his name. Revealing these plans to any around him would have seen him mocked by higher lords as a foolish upstart from a baseless House, but he knew that it was possible to claim these things if you knew who to please and when.

Now the seasons had turned once again. So too had his prospects and not in a kindly fashion. His title as Lord of Harranhal was only valid if upheld by the ruling monarch and he was only Lord Protector of the Vale as long as Robyn Arryn remained alive. He was a sickly child and the winter was cruel to the weak. If Robyn succumbed to his shaking sickness before Petyr had secured the Vale, it would be lost.

Here he stood on the edge of the Seven Kingdoms, sequestered by snow and ice, and only the lightest of winter winds could blow him down.

There was also another piece to this that he was not seeing, a calculation that did not balance but he was blind in the North, in the dark. It had been near six months since he had heard of any word from the East, where the Dragon Queen stirred in her nest of sell swords and barbarians. The last news had been of an uprising of disgruntled slave owners, now bereft of their human wares, reigning terror in Meereen from behind gilded masks. He hoped that it would be enough to keep the formidable Targaryen woman distracted for the time being.

He had no doubt that Varys had some how slithered his way over to Daenerys; he had long suspected the eunuch as having a motive for replacing the former dynasty back on the Iron Throne. And he would be a valuable advisor to have, for no man knew the inner workings of the lords and lands of the Seven Kingdoms better than the spider himself. Sometimes paranoia would strike, and Petyr would see little birds even here at Winterfell: the ratty servant girl who changed his rushes with her eyes too long on his letters, the dark boy mucking out the stables he could have sworn watched his comings and goings across the yard.

There was not much to do but wait, and wait. Storms and winds howled at the castle walls, and he found himself hoping he would not freeze to death in the home of Ned Stark before he achieved his goals. The plans he laid would come to fruition slowly in this frozen place, but come they would, and he was a patient man. There was time yet and the worst move he could make now was one that showed his hand too soon. After all, where would he go but out into the bitter cold and perish?

He had no friends here, and little sway. He served a King who did not trust him, and coveted a woman who did not want him.

He hoped he had taken the measure of these people well.

 ~~~

 “The Lord Snow requires your presence, my Lord.” Podrick Payne, an odd fellow that had once forever trailed on the coattails of Tyrion Lannister. Then he had been a boy, with a temperament that served the odd whims of the Imp well. Now he was a young man and there was still a meekness there. Petyr wondered whether this was an act, as eyes and ears for the dwarf wherever in the world he now resided, Pod had seemed a loyal one. If it were an act, it was a good one.

“Please tell Lord Snow that I shall be there momentarily.”

He took his time donning his frock-coat and placing his gilded rings. They had little sentimental value, but he found himself oddly bereft without their weighty presence on his fingers. Of course, the craftsmanship was exquisite, his cloths and jewels his own form of armour. His sigil, his mockingbird ever present at his throat. He took great pleasure in seeing the rolling eyes of warriors bedecked in metal, clanking and clunking their great weigh around in clear discomfort, while he glided by in his finery.

Petyr arrived at the meeting with little fanfare, the three other men and one woman already seated at the table looking tense and uneasy. Just as the routine had begun to settle, there was upheaval. This could only mean the start of something new, and he felt a long-absent thrill, he was glad of the chance to break the monotony.

For one, it was late in the evening and the dining tables still set up from the earlier meal, the smell of venison and ale still hung in the air. All but the candles at the far end of the hall had been extinguished, creating great chasms of shadows that eventually petered out into darkness. The wolf was nowhere to be seen.

The Wildling, as was always the case these past few weeks, would be preoccupied with his generous gifts. The men from beyond the wall had taken well to the skills of his whores. It would not be long until one went too far with their barbaric impulses he was sure. His girls would be sure to re-tell the horror of it all to the King in great sobbing detail, and perhaps Wildling heads would roll before the month's end.

There was also the very noticeable absence of the Lady Sansa.

The young King looked solemn, even more so than usual if that were at all possible. It was frequent in meetings for Snow to pace, or stand behind his great chair grasping the back like a lifeline. Tonight he sat motionless, his eyes on the fire now low in the hearth.

“Good of you to finally join us, Lord Baelish.” Lord Royce was, for once, not bedecked completely in his shining silver-plated armour. The large man had opted instead for a soft tunic and furs, but still carried a sword at his belt. Winterfell was garrisoned so well that any enemy would need to take down a village of Wildlings, a company of Northmen and all the Knights of the Vale and their horses besides, yet Bronze Yohn still felt it necessary to carry a blade at his hip. Gods forbid the boar spring to life and gore him during supper.

Petyr took his place at the table, bowing his head to Snow. “Forgive me, my lord, I was in the midst of some letters when your summons arrived.”

Snow nodded and gestured to Davos, sat to his right, and the older man pulled three lengths of parchment from his pocket. Raven's notes. _Dark wings, dark words,_ as these northerners liked to say, but Petyr had a hope that these missives would contain only enough to cause contention around this very table.

Davos read, “Doran Martell is dead. The Sand Snakes are now ruling the kingdom and they are in agreement with Highgarden and are united against Cersei Lannister.” He paused and gave a wry smile. “It appears the two Houses have reconciled their differences.” The people of Dorne would not take the murder of their Prince lightly, and yet the Sand Snakes thought that they could rule? He wondered at the stability of the notorious hot-headed Dornishmen.

There was something in this news that did not sit right, but none of the men around the table seemed to find this news worthy of discussion. There was bad blood between the Tyrell's of Highgarden and the Dornish. Were they now united by a shared loathing of the Lannisters? Perhaps. But there would need to be a sweeter deal amongst the vengeance to bring those houses together in friendship.

Again he cursed his shortened reach – his informants in the South were scattered to the winds. The destruction of his brothels and various business interests, and now he only had the words of scant few ships captains that were still trading along the eastern coast. Most now not even allowed into the capital for more than a few hours at a time. It was proving to be extremely frustrating.

“And what does Highgarden have to say?” he asked, watching the faces around the table.

 “Willas Tyrell has agreed to lend his support to the North, his ships, his men, his gold, _if_ we can align our Houses,” said Davos.

 “He wishes to wed the Lady Sansa to secure the alliance,” Petyr surmised.

 Davos nodded and rolled the notes again, passing them back to Snow without a word. The boy's eyes were dark and his brow furrowed.

 Royce sat up straighter. “It would be a wise move, Your Grace,” he said, and the boy grimaced at the formal address, “With the House of Tyrell and the Kingdom of Dorne on our side we would be a mighty force against Cersei and the Ironborn fleet.”

 “Should the Lady Sansa not be privy to this discussion?” Brienne snapped, her blue eyes bulging, “I would think she would like to have a say on who she marries.”

 “It does not matter. She should do her duty,” said Royce, bristling. The older man seemed to take offence at the Lady Knight being allowed not only a sword but a place at this table. Petyr thought he would quite like to see Lord Royce's face when she bested some of the greatest Knights in the land in battle.

 “Her duty?” Brienne's voice broke with suppressed anger. “She has done that at least ten times over. How many more husbands should she take?”

 “As many as needs be if it means taking the throne from that mad woman!” Royce huffed.

 “And Highgarden should be well removed from battle. The Lady Sansa would be far from the fray, at least,” said Ser Davos, with a frown.

 “The Lady Sansa has a mind of her own,” Petyr said with as much neutrality as he could muster.

 Royce ruffled and pursed his lips. “That is what you would like us to believe, is it not? The same as Lord Robyn?”

 “It merely wish to point out that it may not be the best match for the Lady Sansa,” he replied, shaping his words carefully.

 “And what would you suggest instead, Lord Baelish?” asked Ser Davos, levelling his gaze.

 “He would suggest himself-” started Royce.

 “She has been through enough!” Brienne barked, beating him to a retort and drawing herself up straight in the high-backed chair, “If Sansa wishes to wed again in her lifetime then _she_ should be the only person to decide on her Lord.”

 Jon Snow stood with such force the chair scraped harshly against the stone and fell with a jolting clatter behind him. “Enough!” Snow was quiet and his mouth was sour, but his tone was the firm full force of a leader. It was a sight Petyr had not yet seen – the boy was full of fire - is this what the men saw in him on the battle field? A man that had inspired a company of rapists and thieves to follow his commands, to gain the worship of men who had said they would never kneel. A man that had overturned the sins of his father, as his natural born son, to become the leader of the North. “ I do not wish to cause my sister any further distress than is necessary. She has suffered enough. I have called you here to give me council, not bicker amongst yourselves. Whatever is decided here and now, I will be the one to speak to Sansa.” Snow sat back down, the table quelled. “What do we know of him... this Willas Tyrell?”

 There was silence for a moment then Brienne spoke, her eyes not meeting any in the room. “I have met him once. He seemed an honest and fair man. By all accounts he is wise and learned. Crippled by a fall in a tourney but still sound of mind.” It seemed to pain her to side with the man they were discussing to be the future husband of Sansa Stark, but she was a woman with integrity who would not slander a man without cause.

 Lord Royce nodded, “Yes, I attended that tourney. Terrible thing. He was a fine fighter.”

 “Do we know whether Lord Willas is in agreement with his grandmother over this alliance with Dorne?” Snow asked.

 “The Queen of Thorns...” Petyr spoke, “She is formidable. And is almost assuredly pulling all the strings of Highgarden. She also has the most reason in the whole of the Seven Kingdoms to want Cersei Lannister's head on a spike. Our ally in that, at least.”

 “Would they then truly have enough ships? The Ironborn fleet is said to be vast,” said Royce.

 “We could send some of our own. Only a few dozen to be sure but it would be a good show of support,” Snow mused.

 “It might be wiser to let them destroy each other,” Davos pointed out, a practical man as ever.

 “We could do that anyway and bolster support in terms of supplies and men. They would not expect us to march south with our whole army now that winter has come,” Petyr added.

 There was silence again around the table as Snow mulled the options laid before him. “Is this the right thing to do? To trade my _sister_ for ships?”

 Petyr did not think him stupid, nor foolish but the boy was loyal to a fault and he worried for a moment that there was the possibility that this new King would refuse an obvious and imperative alliance as a favour to Sansa's sensibilities. 

 Thankfully, Ser Davos chose that moment to restate his earlier point. “With Euron and his fleet at King's Landing. Highgarden is now one of the the furthest places from the wars,” he said.

 “You could guarantee she would be safe there?” Snow's question was weak and Petyr could already see his walls begin to break.

 “It is a well fortified castle,” Davos noted with a smile, “Trust an old smuggler on that.”

 “She may be unhappy now, Your Grace, but she will come to see that this is for the best. Willas Tyrell would not the most awful of husbands,” said Royce, his tone placating.

 “It may be...for the best, my lord,” Ser Davos said quietly. "And we need those ships..."

 Petyr wondered how many around this table knew the true torture that Sansa had endured at the hands of Ramsay Bolton. He thought perhaps no one but himself and the Lady Brienne, now white with rage and frustration across from him. A maid she may be but he was certain that she understood the nature of violation, the powerlessness of being unable to stop another from taking the most sacred, personal part.

 Brienne was a lucky one in that respect, with the ability to defend her own honour, to fight her battles with the power of a man. She had chosen to don the armour of a Knight as a way to keep her maidenhead and guard herself from the violent hungers of men, an effective if rather extreme method. Petyr watched the woman carefully, as she struggled with the urge to argue for her Lady once again but the calm rationality of the men around the table had seem to curb it.

 He noticed then that Snow was watching him with mistrust, wheels turning behind his deep-set eyes. Should he have said more? It was uncharacteristic of him to be so quiet, he knew, but he was walking a knife's edge here in this room and he couldn't risk any suspicion that this decisions was machinated at his own hands and sly words. Petyr lowered his gaze innocently and found himself pondering the knots on the wood before him. Even the tables in the north seemed to have twisted faces that mocked him. He moved his palm to cover a particularly objectionable one.

After a long, tense time, Snow spoke. “Lady Brienne, I trust you would accompany my sister to Highgarden? Ensure her safety?” Petyr had not noticed the boy stand and move to the window, and his dark and solemn face looked out into the castle grounds. A good thing perhaps, as he fought to keep the victorious smirk from his face. 

 “Of course, Your Grace,” she said, though the prospect did not sit well with her. The great big beast would protect the Lady Sansa until her dying breath. She was self-bound in service and duty both.

 “Ser Davos, fetch me a scroll and ink.”

 “My lord, I do not think this is wise-” Petyr started, making as larger interjection as he dared.

 Jon Snow looked resigned, his furred shoulders stooped. “It is the only way.”

 ~~~

 And so it unfolded like a harmony of singing minstrels, guided by the taps and waves of their timely conductor. The song on the air like joyful instruments accompanying bouncing puppets at a carnival stall, there was much happiness to be found in this play of plays and the characters all wound up in each others threads so tight that there would be no escaping the net of their own making, and too tangled to see the man who wrote the lines and notes.

 She came to him that night. Like he knew she would.

 


	4. Let Me Play You

She stood in his doorway like a Queen demanding fealty, his rooms her conquered kingdoms and he the pitiful subject. Years ago, her face would be blotchy, bloated and red from her tears. Years ago she would have wrung her hands raw and stammered her words as she asked for his help. She knew that this would be useless now, play acting as the girl she once was.

He had seen too much of her. She had seen too much of everything.

She had arrived with the impossible Brienne of Tarth, but left the hulking mountain of a woman outside his rooms with her great pallid face set in that half-sulking frown that meant disapproval of her Lady's actions, but had pledged to be the misery that haunts Sansa Stark for the rest of her days.

It was late, well past midnight and yet the wind still howled its relentless call of the North, mindless of the hour. But his rooms were warm and dry, the walls of Winterfell keeping even the most ungrateful of her occupants safe.

He moved from his table by the fire. He had been doing nothing but staring into the flames with a quill in his hands so that when she happened upon him he would look busy. Snow would have spoken to her as soon as the ravens were sent, and judging by the stern set of her face, the conversation had not gone to her liking. This was very much to _his_ liking.

He inclined his head. “My lady, what can I do for you?”

“I need your help.” There was no question in her tone, and no attempt to bridge the gap between them with empty words of forgiveness, trust or promises. He wondered when she had become so hard, and a doubt began to creep along the edges of his thoughts that perhaps she was not as clumsy in these things as she seemed.

“I trust the King has advised you of his decision.” She twisted her face at him in disapproval as he derided her half-brother with his new title. He smirked. Let her think she knows the worst of him, here in this room, he thought, let her believe he will lay himself bare before her. “I tried-”

“Perhaps you did not try hard enough,” she said sharply. Her spine was straight and he could see that her anger was directed at him too.

“If we are to unseat Cersei, we need ships.”

“So now you are on Jon's side?”

“No,” he said slowly, carefully, wary of her accusatory tone, “I said we need ships. Your brother was not willing to listen to other options...” A half-truth or a partial lie, as he had not brought any forward. Though, he justified, neither had anyone else.

She was studying him closely then, searching his eyes, his face, his posture, for his intent. How long had it been since their conversation in the Godswood? A month? Maybe longer. He knew did not know much of her comings and goings since that time, and she could have been plotting and manoeuvring just as he had. Or, she could been sewing pretty dresses for balls. Both seemed equally possible as he watched her now.

Sansa seemed to come to a decision. The tightness around her mouth relaxed a fraction, her shoulders too, and she moved across the room to take a heavy seat at his table, helping herself to a goblet of wine. He watched her with amusement as she gulped it down belying her stiff resolve. She would have stood her ground against her brother and kept her tears from falling, but practised disinterest took time to master. This affected her. She was still fearful.

He took the seat across from her and caught her eye. There was still a wary cynicism there, but she seemed resigned for now to take Petyr Baelish as he came.

“I feel as though I have _just_ come home, and it's being torn away from me again,” she spoke into the cup, “The last time I left Winterfell for marriage... I had to say goodbye to my mother. And I will never see her again.” The sentiment was sorrowful, but her voice was steady and grave. The mention of Catelyn made his pulse skitter as it always did, and he wondered if Sansa had raised her mother's memory deliberately.

Sansa knew, more than most, how much he would do for his love of Catelyn Tully.

And how much of his dearest Cat lay beneath the surface of Sansa Stark? The physical resemblance was undeniably striking, so much so that his heart had surely stopped and his breath caught in his throat the first time he had seen that red hair catch the sun at the Hand's Tourney, thinking somehow the gods for once had been kind and sent him back to a time before he knew how cruel the world could be.

But half of her was Ned Stark and yes, there was that too in her face if you cared to look deeply. But Sansa was nowhere near as foolish.

No, her temperament, her mind, was made of something so completely different from either father or mother. Something other than blood. The Royal Court had raised her, he had groomed her and her experience at the hands of a sadistic bastard had hardened her. Now there was a woman built of such fortification and guile that even he had to second guess every look, reaction and smile.

“Sansa...” his kept his voice soft, and left it hanging in the warm air of the hearth. He wanted her to take him along on whatever path she thought they were walking together.

She paused and took a breath. “I can't.” And her voice only trembled the tiniest fraction, a tremor so small that had he not been looking for any small chink of weakness in her armour he would not have heard it. She met his eyes and held his gaze. “Not again.”

She moved then, grasped his hand in her own, and it was startling for as far as he could recall she had never touched him, never initiated a touch or caress. It had always been him, leading and her following. It was light, barely a pressure of her soft fingertips against his own. He had to force himself not to run a thumb over her unblemished skin.

He had to push out his words. “Please...believe that it is the last thing I want for you.” He was justifying his actions as fast as his heart had started to beat and he needed to regain control. She needed to think that she was what he coveted above all things, that he was a man moved by Lady Sansa Stark of Winterfell, that the picture he had described to her all those weeks ago, was a real and tangible thing she could also cling on to. Of course that man would do anything to soothe her.

_Of course._

“I have tried – with Jon – I have tried to explain. I don't think he understands, not really – what Ramsay did, what Joffrey did...” At that her hand squeezed his a bit tighter. “I don't want this, this is not my choice. He thinks he can protect me but he can't. And he won't _listen.”_ And by the gods she was so earnest now, her eyes large and reflecting fiercely in the firelight, he could if he chose to...it would be easy. He could believe it was real.

He looked at their hands intertwined, let himself enjoy the feel a little longer. “What would you have me do?”

“I don't know...talk to him? Think of something. That's what you're good at, isn't it?”

Her sudden reversal to girlish uncertainty irked him, but he kept his face kind. “I fear that anything I ask of the King in the North may only serve to push him further in the opposite direction,” he said gently.

“He doesn't trust you.” They both knew it was true. Petyr wondered how much of that distrust this crafty, beautiful thing in front of him had whispered in her brother's ears.

“And he's right not to,” he said. And then he had to ask her if only to see what she would do, “Do you?”

She levelled her gaze, and for a moment the softness was gone, leaving only flint-ish hardness. What did she see when she looked at him? The mockingbird, the liar, manipulator? The man who loved her mother? The fool that loved her? He did not know, and for that fleeting second with a swooping low in his gut, he felt he may have made a grave mistake.

But then her eyes gentled, kind again. “I trust...that you would keep me safe.” It was a bold lie, but as it fell from her lips it sounded like the truth. It would most likely be as close as he could get. She looked at their joined hands, squeezing again. “Is this not what you wanted?”

“I wanted to give you the North,” he said, and there was no falsehood there. He had. And he had failed. It must have registered on his face, for she threaded her fingers into his own with slow, encouraging care.

“You have. Now help me keep it.”

~~~

He needed to keep her at arms length, for now. Sansa had left his chambers as swift as she had come, a shameless press of lips to his cheek. He had stared into the fire until the flames were reduced to glowing charcoal trying to pull his thoughts into alignment. She was too presumptuous, too bold, and he could not ignore the feeling that he may not have the right of things when it came to her intentions.

Snow quickly arranged for Sansa to ride to White Harbour and sail for Oldtown as soon as the storm broke. The journey would be much swifter on the sea, with plenty of safe harbour along the shores of the Narrow Sea if the weather turned. From Oldtown she would ride to Highgarden and into the waiting arms of her new husband. The Lady Sansa would be accompanied by fifty men of the North and fifty Knights of the Vale, all of Lord Royce's choosing much to Petyr's chagrin.

King Jon the Shrewd would perhaps be an apt title for the history books.

There was a window of weeks, perhaps a few months at the most before she would be packed off to Willas Tyrell and his apparently rather glorious chin. He had some time.

Sansa had been uncompromising in the days after the betrothal was thrust upon her, refusing to speak to her half-brother like the spoiled girl Jon Snow would have remembered from their childhood. It was a petty display, that Petyr rather enjoyed.

Petyr's plan, though it had been half-formed at best, _had_ been to drive the wedge between Sansa and her half-brother in an attempt to wrest back his sway over the girl. And, outwardly, it appeared to be working.

But he was being played. Surely, the girl could not love him or want him. It seemed such an about turn that it made him uneasy. The girl was full of vengeance, and her motivations much like his own, needed to be questioned.

At the least, Snow did not trust her and wished to send her away from him, and that would have to be enough for him to work with for now.

~~~

“I cannot marry you,” he said abruptly to her, as she entered his rooms two nights later. It was well past dinner and the boundaries of propriety again, her towheaded giant standing vigil on the door. He wondered if she was being discreet at all, or parading herself and the Lady Brienne to his quarters for all to see in a pigheaded show of protest against her King.

Sansa merely raised an eyebrow at him as she moved to pour herself a goblet of wine.

“You know as well as I that it would be extremely unwise to take any action without your brother's consent. Wars have been started over less.”

She took a slow sip from her cup, then looked at him. “I know.” She placed the goblet back down on the table and turned towards the fire to warm herself.

For a moment he stared at her slender back, silhouetted, the light catching in the edges of her hair. He wanted to touch it, run his fingers through the locks that he knew to be soft, red and wonderful against his skin.

“Then what would you have me do?” He spoke softly, trying to keep any hint of impatience from his tone. If she wanted compliance, he would give her this, if only to draw her out. He moved towards her, placing a gentle hand on her elbow and she turned her head. 

Never would he be able to deny that she was beautiful. 

“I need to stay here at Winterfell, where I'm safe,” she said and turned fully so she was facing him, and she leaned close, so close he could breathe her in. “I can't go. Not now, not to someone I don't know. Not again.” Her voice was a whisper, a plea, and her eyes shined. There was half a thought somewhere that wondered where she had learned how to craft these moments, these words, so well. “Please...Petyr...please. Don't make me go.” She grasped his hand, her contact still a shock to him and she brought it to her soft cheek, leaning into his touch. The thought was gone.

He watched rapt in fascination as she turned her head and kissed the palm of his hand with tender lips. She would break a stronger man's heart. She would have torn him clean in two had he met her in his youth. He let himself inhale her sweet scent – jasmine, his favourite – and willed his mind to lead his body and not the other way around.

Slowly, she started to gift her kisses down to his wrist until her lips rest against his pulse point. She must feel the pounding of his blood through his veins. Would she take that as a sign of love? Of a promise? She led him down a dangerous path, and although he knew that this most likely was all a desperate ruse, he couldn't help but follow a just pace behind.

Her lips stilled, and a soft sigh escaped them, her breathe fluttering over his skin like a torturous feather.

Sansa's eyes opened then, and she looked as abashed as she dropped his wrist, pulling back from him her eyes lowered to the floor. Her movements were unhurried but it was clear the moment had broken even with his heart still crashing against his chest. Smoothing her skirts she moved away from the fire, giving him the barest hint of a smile, and he saw her eyes burning into him, through him, and he felt a sickening sense that he had failed some sort of gauntlet.

He returned her gaze, with what he hoped was a look of complicity and not astonishment. He had not been in control there, every second her lips had been upon him, her sweet breath on his skin, he could not have done a thing about it.

“Lord Baelish,” she said, with a curtsy that seemed at odds with her look that set him aflame.

“My Lady,” he said, his blood finally cooling and the mask slipping back into place.

He was a fool. Lady Sansa played a dangerous game, and he had vastly underestimated her skill.

 

 


	5. Exposure

 Petyr frowned at the meagre contents of his wardrobe. He had not brought near enough of his clothes from the Vale and what little he had was too thin for this cold. He doubted these ham-fisted northerners could embroider a frock coat that was fine enough for his liking, even with the thick wools and scratchy linens that were the only materials available to them. More and more, he was coming to understand the grim mentality of these people. There was no pleasure to be had anywhere.

 He had been so woefully under prepared to come here, and not just in dress. So confident was he in his ability to use the methods that had served him so well in King's Landing to gain power and influence in the North. But using a man's selfishness against him was useless if they were all so damn _noble._

 The Great House Stark was mocking him, he was sure. These very walls jeered, the wind howled with laughter. Lord Eddard's bones lay in the crypts beneath his feet and they rattled and shook, hysterical with glee at his misfortune. Sansa too was certainly having her fun.  She had found some tiny crack in him, a fissure invisible to all but her, and managed to pry it apart. Once he would lay all of his weakness for the girl at the feet of Catelyn Stark's memory. He would comfort himself with the reminder that it was _only Cat._ He was finding it harder and harder to convince himself the truth of that every day.

 It infuriated him, how she had managed to unnerve him. What was it about her that made him forget who and what this was all about when she was near? He wanted her, yes, that was undeniable. The memory of he soft lips on his pulse made his cock stir in a way that even the lewdest displays of filth and depravity had not done for years. But it was not just her beauty or her youthful body that he wanted. He wanted _her_. He wanted to consume her, rule her, _win_ her. This girl, barely of age, would not beat him.

But at the moment, that was all she was doing.

 Resigned, he dressed, layering additional small clothes underneath taking care to make sure they did not ruin the line of his outer coat.

 A light knock came then on his chamber door, and of course it was her.

 “Lady Sansa, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

 She smiled at him, the simpering, facile thing that she wore as Lady of Winterfell. He wanted to slap it from her face. There was a notable absence of the towering Brienne.

 “I was merely hoping you could escort me to breakfast, Lord Baelish,” she said. “The courtyard is slippery with ice.”

 “Of course, my Lady,” he said, with as much false courtesy as she. He donned his furred cloak then held out his arm for her obligingly. Normally he broke his fast in his chambers, with a roaring fire and plenty of quiet. The Great Hall, always full to bursting with slobbering soldiers and wild men, the stink of bodies crammed into the space only exaggerated by the heat of the hearths and walls.

 They started together down the stairs of the Keep. It wasn't a terrible thing, her hand in the crook of his elbow, her warmth pressed close – perhaps too close to be proper – as they descended and walked out into the courtyard. The route from the Keep to the great hall was compacted, with dykes of shovelled snow marking walkways that criss-crossed the castle's yard. The servants kept the snows as clear as they could between blizzards, and salt was used to stop the ice from freezing to a treacherous sheen overnight.

 A careful step was all one needed, and even he as a lowly southern lord more used to the wet and the wind, had quickly mastered walking on this ground. Sansa made a show of gripping him tightly in as they walked.

 “Where is your giant shadow, my Lady?” he asked, keeping his tone light so that anyone watching would see only a polite discussion between the two of them. It was not like he had deflowered the girl, or even that their relationship was an impropriety. He had heard more than one man speculating on their connection. But rumours, especially juicy little peaches such as this, had a way of taking on a life of their own, plump and moreish in the greedy mouths of the castle.

“She trains her squire, Pod, on a morning, if the weather allows.”

“Is that wise, teaching the boy how to use a sword? It wasn't too long ago that he was a Lannister man.”

“ _Lord Tyrion's_ man,” she corrected. “And besides, who are you to talk of switching allegiances? It's enough to snap a man's neck, trying to follow where your loyalties lie.”

He allowed her the joke with a small smile. “You _know_ where my loyalties lie, my Lady.”

“And yet you won't take me for a wife,” she said. Her tone was still light, playful as if they were merely discussing small, inconsequential matters.

“Not won't. Can't,” he said as they approached the doors to the Great Hall. The low murmur of groggy soldiers scraping a breakfast of bacon and oats into their mouths could be heard through the door. 

 Still graceful and smiling, she pressed herself ever so slightly into his side. “You want me.” Her voice was low.

 He turned his face to her, still caught in her tight hold on his arm. He smirked his most lascivious, Littlefinger look. “I want everything.”

 Unperturbed, she leaned in, her lips so close to his ear he felt the air stir from her breath.“Then why not take it when it is in your grasp?” she whispered, pulling back with a small, coy smile. He watched her back as she entered the Great Hall.

 The cold wind nipped his skin, sluicing through his thin silks and the old gods were laughing.

 ~~~

 “...are requesting smiths and spare weapons be sent south to the Twins to arm the garrison of Tully men that surrendered. That would bring our total of fighting men at the Green Fork to seven hundred.” Lord Royce was speaking and Petyr noticed that his attention had wandered and the topic had moved on without him realising.

 “How are their provisions?” asked the King.

 “Very good, Your Grace. The Freys kept a decent enough portion of their harvest.”

“What about the remaining Frey men in the area, the ones that fled?”

 “Scouting parties have put a stop to some of the pillaging, but most have fled to Riverrun.”

 “And no word from Lord Edmure?” Snow directed his question to Davos.

 “None, Your Grace.” 

 “He is a Lannister puppet,” said Brienne. “I would not trust any word from him if you get it.”

 Snow nodded and gave his order. “Send another hundred men with smiths and whatever steel we can spare. If the Lannisters march north then-”

 He was cut short by a commotion at the door. Two Vale soldiers were half-leading, half-carrying a woman with white-blonde hair into the room. She was poorly dressed for the cold, and it took him only a second to see that the girl was one of his _special_ whores he had installed for the Wildling men. Her name was Neevah and she had been procured from Lys, shipped at great expense to White Harbour only weeks before. She had been hard at work since then, her and her companions both amassing a small fortune in servicing the free folk with his coin. 

And now it appeared finally one of those barbarians had overstepped their bounds in the bedroom.

 “They killed her! They killed her!” she was sobbing over and over again, as the guards pulled her forward and she crumpled to the floor. He noticed there were small cuts and scratches on her arms. A nice touch.

 Every man and one woman around the table had jumped to their swords, and Petyr found himself rather enjoying the drama of it all.

 Snow spoke, “Who? Who has been killed?”

 The girl was overwrought and unable to speak, taking great heaving sobs of air. He had asked for a display, but perhaps this one felt the need to take it too far. He made a mind to dock her bonus for her overzealous histrionics.

 Sansa moved quickly round the table and grasped the girl by the shoulders. “Shhh, you are safe,” she soothed. “Let us help. What has happened?”

 Neevah calmed, nodding at the noble Lady before her, and her shuddering breaths started to slow. “They...those wild men...they have taken Jula. They- ” she gulped and gasped some more and Sansa rubbed at the girl's bare shoulders, “...her breast...they cut it off. They tried to make her....to make her eat it...” An abhorrent crawling, cold began to roll and sweep its way over the room. Sansa's face turned curdled white, but she held tightly to the girl's shoulders as she trembled. “...they took her...she was screaming, bleeding and- daggers, they...violated her with...”

 “Who did this?” Sansa demanded.

 The girl sobbed again but choked out, “Wild men...they killed her...”

 Petyr was still looking at the shaking wretch but he could feel the eyes of the room on him. At some point everyone of those present had made the connection; the clothes, the accent, the sordid tale. They knew what she was, why she was there. And only one man in the room had ever been known as a whore monger.

Lord Royce was near purple with rage, his great face quivering. "This- this was your doing you lowborn son of a-"

Snow cut him off. "Lord Royce! Mind your tongue." The warning was for the older man, but his eyes were narrowed and steady on Petyr and the boy's mouth was twisted in disgust. Perhaps hiding a brothel within the castle walls had been a step too far. "I want the men who did this. And their leader."

"At once, Your Grace," Davos said as he stepped forward to lead the armed men out to the Wildling camp.

"No," Snow said firmly. “Lord Baelish, this is your mess. You can clean it up."

 ~~~

 Petyr found himself outside the Wildling camp half a mile from the castle walls, tents pitched made of stitched hide and bracken, crammed in close to preserve heat, the smell of burning animal dung rising in the smoke. Some men sat only in thin layers, sharpening axes and exchanging guttural grunts of a language he did not recognise. They seemed impervious to the cold, these strange northmen, but he supposed if you have lived your entire life north of the wall, cold is a relative term.

 He moved between the tents, trying to avoid piles of animal bones and human waster alike, and felt their wild eyes on him. He felt exposed. His rings seemed to weigh down his hands, the rich cloth of his cloak felt like a target painted on his back.

 He would be safe, he tried to assure himself, they would all recognise him for the important man he was. Surely, even a Wildling man had enough wits about him to not murder a member of the King's Small Council.

 As he got deeper into the camp, he began to notice the small faces of children as he passed, peeping from behind large men and ragged women. Their expressions were pinched and tight, noses ruddy from the cold. And they did not cry. Not a sound or whimper.

 There were older people too, frail and stooped, swaddled tightly in blankets and close to the fires. One man looked so near death that if it hadn't been for the small clouds of breath from his nose, Petyr would have thought him a corpse. Another, dressed only in small clothes, looked as if any minute the skin might slough from his bones.

 How had he not known? How had this not been mentioned in the small council? This was a camp not just for the Wildling fighting force, but for refugees, whole families fleeing the horrors beyond the wall. What had they seen that left their eyes so hollow? They were sick, tired, emaciated things. Only the fighting men seemed to have any rigour left.

 He felt overwhelmed by it, drowned by it; the people, the smells, the acrid choking smoke in the air. He had built himself up from a boy that came from nothing, from nowhere but a tiny spit of land in a forgotten part of the realm. A sickly thing, a weakling, he had begged and borrowed and lied and killed, anything to get ahead. He had known hunger, a desperate hunger that no feast could feed. He had done terrible things.

 But he had never known an existence like this. He shunned the poor in King's Landing the same as any perfumed nobleman, ensuring the paths and alleys to his brothels were well manned with subtle guards that cleared away anything or anyone unsightly. He had ignored the poverty that had surrounded him so easily, for it rarely crossed his path. There were men and servants for those kind of errands, any that might take him through the human wastes of Flea Bottom or Pisswater Bend.

 Never had he seen such desperation, such decay. Despite the chill, a sweat broke out on his brow and he felt a warning tingle of saliva rush his mouth as his stomach clenched.

 He pointed to the nearest male Wildling, his voice commanding as he forced down the bile. “You there! Get a message to Tormund Giantsbane. Tell him Jon Snow requests his presence at the castle immediately and to bring the men that killed the whore.” The man grunted but moved away. 

 He walked at a speed that was only a step short of running back to the castle, where he could surround himself with familiar things. Perhaps then his hands would stop shaking.

 ~~~

 The Wildling men were brought before the King in the North, and the King passed his sentence: murder was murder, rape was rape, whore or no.

 Three heads fell from strong, fighting men. Three less of a dwindling race.

 The King lifted his eyes and met his across the courtyard, sword drenched and dripping in Northern blood.

 Petyr waited that night, for his summons, for his turn to stand and face the judgement of the White Wolf.

 ~~~

 He was not asleep when she came even though it was nearing dawn. His mind rolled and reeled like a galley in a storm, helplessly blown off course. Ever a practical man, and ever a wary one, he had remained dressed and booted ready to fly out the door at a moments notice to collect his Knights of the Vale, those few that would still remain loyal to him.

 So when the handle turned and the door eased open he had one hand on the dagger deep in his cloak before he saw her hair glowing red in the candlelight.

 She had brushed it out, his clever girl, just the way he liked to see that beautiful, cascading curtain of Tully hair. Her dark black cloak from the Eerie completely covered her from head to toe, but the coy tilt of her face told him that he may find hidden treasures if her cared to look underneath.

 He stood from his writing desk, and watched her take in his attire. Her eyes were hungry. Yes, Tully-red hair but very much a wolf.

 “Are you planning a trip, Lord Baelish?”

 “My Lady, you should not be here...”

 She waved his concern away and took a step towards him, sure and purposeful and he couldn't help the sense that for every foot she covered, the part of him that knew that this was terrible, terrible idea, faded back into the shadows of the room. 

She stood close enough to touch. His stomach began to ache with the effort of holding himself so still.

 “I have spoken to Jon,” she started. “You have been let off with a warning.”

 “I wondered why I was not already in chains.”

She rolled her eyes at his dramatics. “He wasn't going to kill you. He was going to send you away, like he did with that Red Priestess. I convinced him it would be better for you to stay.”

 “How?”

 “By reminding him that while Lord Arryn is still alive, the Knights of the Vale are yours,” she said simply, "And that the first place you would take them would be to King's Landing.”

 “More than likely they would mutiny and I would be turned out in the cold,” he pointed out. The men - bar a few dozen who valued money and means over honour – would follow the lead of the gallant Lord Royce. He had spent these weeks well, sowing distrust among them.

 “Yes, and head straight for Cersei's court.”

 “She would cut me down if turned up without an army...” _Or your head,_ he wanted to add, but she would know that already. It was no secret the Mad Queen wanted the girl dead for her supposed part in Joffrey's death.

 “ _I_ know that...” she said, her lips twisting with amusement. “But Jon doesn't.”

 He studied her for a moment as she watched his face, still smiling. “Then, why?”

 At that Sansa only tutted and plucked his mockingbird pin from his throat and placed it on the desk. Then, with a deft hand she undid the clasp that held his heavy cloak, and pulled it from his shoulders.

 “It is stifling in here,” she said by way of explanation, grasping the furs tightly but not taking a step back. She was enjoying this.

 This would not do. He gathered his wits - every last one of them - and wrestled them into submission.

 “Sansa, tell me,” he demanded. A new strategy was needed here; perhaps a spark of memory of the trusting girl she once was would bring her out, let him see a sliver of her intentions here. “If you tell me, why you kept me here, if you tell me everything... you can have whatever you want. I will find a way.” He filled his words with the deep, rough heat that had been gathering in his stomach since the first time she had come to this chamber, since the first time he touched his lips to hers, since the moment he saw shining red in golden southern sunlight. She raised a sceptical eyebrow but said nothing. If she wanted him to talk, he would, his silver tongue had wrested him from more dire situations than these. “I told you that _this_ was what I wanted." He gestured in the small air between them, but did not touch her. "It has been what I wanted for a very long time. I have taken so many risks, killed Kings to be here by your side. I will tell you all, every little thing, every secret. If we are honest with each other, _just each other,_ here and now... if you promise... we can have all of it.  _Together.”_

Silence for a moment and yes, she was right, the room was stifling but it had nothing to do with the fire in the hearth.

“Together,” she repeated, tasting the word in her mouth, feeling the shape of it on her tongue. Her eyes met his as she tossed his cloak carelessly to the rushes on the floor, then her hands moved to his frock coat and began to undo the highest fastenings. He stood still, and watched her fingers work. “I told you it was a pretty picture. It sounds like a dream I used to have as a child: I wanted so badly to be Queen, to a handsome, gallant King.” One by one she plucked them apart, slow, so painfully slow. “A silly dream, for a silly girl.” She eased the garment off his shoulders, brushing her hand across his under shirt and he could feel the heat of her already through the thinness of the silk.

 “What I want now - what I dream about now - is very different.” Her hands lifted the hem up and over his head. “And still I am told I cannot have it.”

 She had him bare-chested in his breeches in the most matter of fact way. He still did not move, nor did he dare to, but his breath was as heavy as hers. Her fingers brushed lightly against the scar that ran like the Kings Road from north to south down his chest, and the sensation went straight to his cock. He fought back a moan.

 Her hands began to play in the sparse hairs on his chest, travelling lower until they found the ties at his waist. Her fingers pulled apart the knots, brushing brazenly against him. “I am tired of not simply taking what I want.”

 Somewhere, dragged bodily from his last reserves he managed to find some final words of protestation, “Sansa...this... would be unwise.”

 She smiled, a secret smile full of hidden things, and if he had been a better man, a stronger man he would have stayed her hands and stopped this game before she unravelled him any more. She did not care for him, Littlefinger urged, she only wanted to keep him close, away from plotting against her brother. She did care for him, Petyr said, but he must win her respectfully and at the right time, not when she was betrothed to another man. 

But he was not a good man, not a noble, northern man. 

 “Petyr,” she whispered, her lips parted. A prayer for him, he thought. And he could only ask these old gods that if he surrendered that they at least be more kind to his soft southern skin.

 Then she brought her fingers to the direwolf clasp that held her cloak shut, and let the leaden fabric fall to the floor like all the last pieces of his resolve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I _wonder_ what will happen next?
> 
> Hint: the title of the next chapter is "Lemoncake"
> 
> Also, I have created a tumblr account [here ](http://rbennetwrites.tumblr.com/) so come find me. Please welcome me into this fandom kindly, and remember I am old, and I know not what I do *reblogs every picture of cats in fancy dress*


	6. Lemoncake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _cough_ *changes rating* _cough_

 She stood before him, and he forgot how to think.

He had seen many, many naked women in his life. More than he could count. He had squeezed and measured breasts and rolled nipples of every hue in his fingers with the kind of detached sentiment with which a farmer tests his breeding stock. He had stuck his fingers in cunts of every shape and size, pulled apart a whore's nether lips to check for disease or fester. Nudity had never fazed him as Littlefinger the whore monger.

Petyr Baelish on the other hand, had been reduced to a speechless virgin boy at the sight of the woman before him.

Sansa's silky red tresses had fallen to barely cover her breasts and the hair between her legs was just a shade darker. He tried not to swallow, he really did, but then she blushed in the firelight and he could not help his reaction. 

A boy of fourteen would have more control, he scolded himself, willing his blood to cool. Unthinkingly, he brought a hand to touch her magnificent hair wanting to feel it slip through his fingers. She flinched at the movement. He looked at her then, truly, and he saw trepidation there behind her steeled resolve.

The foolish girl, he thought, trying not to let his irritation show. She knew she would get this far, and until this point where she laid herself gloriously bare, she had been completely in control. The wrongful part of him that hated to be played wanted to push and push her then, to see just how much she could take before she snapped and crumbled under the weight of her trauma. Even his best whores had their emotional limits, even the strongest women he knew had a breaking point.

The moment was dark, fleeting and faded as soon as he looked at her deep eyes. They were so much like the ones he saw every night in his dreams since a boy, and felt the guilt and regret rise up over him like an unforgiving wave. He was the purveyor of that pain. He caused the fear there.

Perhaps this was an opportunity to atone for that mistake. He could not undo the hurt she had suffered at the hands of Ramsay Bolton, but he could try and heal some of the larger open wounds, close them up so that they were only scars.

He took her hand, light in his own, and gently pulled her toward the bed. He could feel her tremble underneath his fingertips and she was trying so hard to be brave. His bed was large, covered in plenty furs to appease his thin Southern skin, and he moved her to stand before it, to let her feel the soothing softness of the pelts against her bare thighs. She shook.

Petyr wondered morbidly how it had happened, that first night after the wedding. Had the boy been gentle at first, then cruelly turned when she did not expect it? Had he beat her to the point where she begged him to stop, and then the violation of her body was only a small hurt, almost a relief by then? Did he come to her every night or time his visits at random to ensure she was always afraid of footsteps on the stairs?

Still dressed in his unlaced breeches, Petyr stepped forward to bring his lips to hers. She turned her head sharply so his lips grazed her cheek and he noticed her eyes swam with un-shed tears but they did not fall. She was terrified.

He sighed and pulled back, taking her face gently in his hands.“Sansa...tell me to stop and I will.”

She shook her head, taking a breath and raised her chin defiantly. Before he could speak again she had pulled his hands down to her breasts, pushing his palms up against them.

“I am not in the habit of taking an unwilling woman...” he said gently, taking his hands away, putting them back down by his sides where he could not hurt her.

She paused, thinking on her options. He was interested to see if she would take his offer to back down from what she had started. 

Her head raised again, and he saw the portcullis come down. “Would an unwilling woman do this?” She stepped towards him and grasped him hard through his breeches, her fingers so tight as to almost be painful.

He let out a strangled gasp and she smiled. He saw her screw her courage, and taking a deep breath she pushed her hand down and underneath the cloth that covered his manhood. Her fingers scraped lightly along his length, curiously feeling the shape and weight of him. It was unpractised and clumsy but it was her and the thought made him groan.

“And you seem to be ready to have me,” she noted.

Seemingly satisfied, Sansa pulled back and moved to lay down on the bed. He watched her position herself in the centre of the furs, her legs bent and parted slightly and her eyes fixed squarely on the ceiling. For a moment he was confused, the sudden change from wanton seductress to this practical arrangement of her body, like a frigid wife doing only her duty and nothing more.

And then he realised; the girl had seen many times the way women would play and flirt at court in order to bend those around them to their will. Cersei had once been a master of this game. Queen Margaery herself had been a singular temptress - one that Petyr himself had been impressed by - capable of manipulating all those around her with the skill of a expert forger shaping steel. Sansa had grown into a young lady in King's Landing, had been shaped by the cruelties of it, learning the skills of these women without even realising their influence.

But Sansa's knowledge of sex, of secret pleasures that lie behind the closed doors of bedrooms and brothels, she knew only suffering and the power of a man taking what he wanted from her young, pale body. Petyr looked at her now, a step and a breath back from her and noted the faint lines and healing scars along her thighs and her stomach. A blade had been taken to her, not to cut deep, only enough to draw blood and cause pain.

Petyr moved towards her slowly, so as not to startle her again, and placed himself on the bed at her feet. Her eyes flickered towards him, looking at his breeches still slung around his hips, then fixed themselves back on the ceiling.

“I think you need to take them off for this to work," she said.

He smiled and drew a finger lightly up the inside of her calf. She gasped and he saw fight the urge to slam her legs shut, her fingers gripping the furs. “I think I'll leave them on for now.”

Her head came up, and she looked confused.

“Lie back, try and relax,” he suggested, and after a moment's pause, she complied.

He drew her legs apart, wide enough for him to settle himself between them and leaned down to plant a soft kiss on her stomach. The skin was soft, so soft and pale in the flickering candle light. He glanced up at her face and now her eyes were screwed shut, her breathing coming in shallow pants.

“Relax, my love...” he whispered into her stomach, letting his kisses trail lower. At the same time, he started to bring his fingers lightly up, to her inner thighs, drawing soft circles in the creamy flesh.

Sansa quivered and let out a long breath.

“That's it. Just breath for me.” He kissed down to her hips, licking at the jutting bone and nipping at the taught skin. Sansa jumped and he soothed the spot again with his tongue. “You are so beautiful, my love.”

He drew his fingers higher up her thigh and watched her face carefully as he let his thumb slip into her folds. She was barely wet, and if he entered her now he would surely hurt her. He let his breath ghost against her, tickling the reddish-hair. She sighed, and this time it sounded something almost like pleasure from her lips. It made him bold.

Before she could stop him, he lowered his mouth and licked her bottom to top, pressing his tongue firm and flat against her nub. Sansa jolted up and gasped, her hands coming quickly to his hair. At first he thought she was trying to pull him away, but then he felt the gentle press of her fingers pushing him into her, urging him on.

“Do that again,” she said, her voice firm.

He smiled against her, and moved himself to a more comfortable position on the bed where he would be able to rut against the furs as he pleased her. Firmly, he took her hips and pulled her to him so that she was flush against his mouth. He began again, licking firmly up and working in earnest, pulling waves of pleasure from her lovely cunt. Her head fell back and her hands went again to his hair, tugging at the short strands in encouragement.

Her breathing sped up and he could tell she was getting close to her peak as he held her hips down into the bed. He teased and nipped at her nub and she moaned. The sound was like gilded birdsong, and he fought his baser urges to pull her to him and push himself inside her right there and then.

He brought his hand then to her entrance, and he could feel the wetness of her pleasure starting to pool. With a quick thrust, he pushed a finger inside and it was so warm with her walls gripping him tight, he groaned aloud.

Sansa's eyes shot open and she stared down at the place his mouth was on her. A slight sheen of sweat coated her brow. He pulled away but kept his finger inside her, curling up and into the spot his whores joked was impossible for any man to find. He watched her face for any sign of trepidation, but she only stared at his finger working inside of her, panting shallow breaths.

Taking her silence as approval, he pushed another finger inside to join the first. Sansa's eyes closed and her moan was low, wanton. He felt her begin to pulse around him, so he lowered his mouth to her again, keeping a steady pace with both tongue and fingers.

Her breath hitched and he felt her walls clench and shudder around his fingers. She made no sound just gasped and writhed as he greedily licked up her spendings.

Petyr took a moment then to pull back and look, really look, at the woman before him. Her face and chest were flushed, her hair fanned around her like a glorious red mane. He kneeled between her still spread thighs and she was the picture of a thoroughly debauched goddess, a northern queen among her furs. He idly stroked her delicate ankle as he watched her breathing return to normal. 

She raised herself up on her elbows and looked at him, seeming to gather her wits and come back to herself. 

“I never knew,” she said, some of her uncertainty returning to her. “I never knew it could be like that.”

“That and so much more.”

Her eyes lowered and she began to pick at the covers. “He would always just take me. It was always so painful.” She looked then at his manhood, clearly straining still against the front of his breeches. “I thought that it must always hurt.” She sat up and reached for the ties at his waist, pulling them fully out and lowering the cloth until he came free. “It looks too big to fit and it not hurt.”

He chuckled then, and she looked up at him as if he was mocking her. “No, my love,” he soothed, bringing a hand to her face, still flushed from her climax, “it doesn't always hurt. Only when a man is selfish.” She stared again at his manhood and did not seem convinced. “If you would permit, I may have an...idea.”

Sansa said nothing, only watched him steadily as if at any moment this would turn in the way she feared.

He moved back and off the bed, letting his breeches fall to the floor and stepping out of both them and his boots. He then walked around and moved to lie down on his back next to her, but far enough away not to spook her. He grasped her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. “Sit on my lap,” he urged, tugging gently. “Put one knee either side of my hips.”

Still wary she did as he asked, taking care not to touch his jutting manhood. She positioned herself on his stomach, hands coming to rest on his chest. He could feel her, warm and wet and ready. “Now what?” she asked.

“Now you do as you like. You understand how it works I presume?” he asked archly.

She shot him a look but said nothing. Delicate fingers played gently with the sparse hairs on her chest and her could see the taught nervousness in her shoulders. He moved his hands soothingly up her arms and drew his fingers lightly across her collarbones. She sighed and relaxed a fraction.

Steeling herself, Sansa raised up on her knees and attempted to find him blindly. When she grabbed him, he hissed but nodded for her to continue. Moving back slightly, she positioned herself over him, letting the tip rest at her entrance. It felt incredible, just to rest against her there and he had to force himself not to move, not to look at anything but her face.

The she moved down, down onto him and it was blissful, wonderful solace. She stilled, panting and sheathed on him fully and he could feel her pulse pounding against his fingers. He lowered his hands to her waist and began to rub slow rhythmic circles against the soft skin of her stomach. Her eyes met his and she moved, just a small amount, tilting her hips and testing the sensation.

Petyr felt more than heard her gasp, and she moved again. The groan he had been holding back escaped him and he willed his eyes to stay open, wanting to watch every second of this first time.

How long had he wanted this, dreamed of this? It was all almost far too perfect, the way her hair fell down her back and tickled the backs of his hands, her pert breasts bouncing gently as she moved. Her breath coming in tiny little gasps of surprise, then joy, then shaping into moans of pleasure. There was a wonder there, a heavy awe, sitting somewhere behind his chest.

She began to roll her hips against him in earnest and he guided her with a slight pressure from his thumbs. His hips thrust upwards then, involuntarily and her gasp caught in her throat like a sob. For a moment he was worried he had hurt her, then the muscles in her thighs flexed as she ground down and she whispered, “More, I like that, _more_.”

He complied and she cried out, clenching around him. He sucked in air sharply through his teeth and bucked again. She was close now, and he was struggling to keep himself from doing the same, so he reached down to press a finger between them, stroking her hard. A few seconds was all it took and she began to shake, her hips moving erratically against him, little mewls escaping her lips as she came.

Petyr let himself go then, his release momentarily pulling him from this plane and into a quick, black bliss. When he opened his eyes again he found her slumped on his chest, her hair slicked to her face with sweat. He tried to move but was met with only her hips pushing gently back into his own as she shuddered again.

He was soft inside her now, and warm, heart still racing. He wondered if she could hear it thumping against his chest as it slowed to resting. He felt the pull of sleep, the furs at his back soft and inviting, the fire burning down in the grate. Her lips grazed softly against his skin and she murmured words he could not catch, as he sank down into dreams.

~~~

He woke in the night, buried deep under the coverings with a warm body by his side, pressed into him, touching at every point that could be touched. Her fingers played idly with the trail of hair that ran down to his cock and he felt himself stir to attention.

He could hear the northern winds still screaming against the walls of the keep, unrelenting in their need to be heard. Though they were safe and warm inside this castle, built to withstand a thousand winters, the din only served to remind him that he was far, far from home.

Sansa said nothing, just pressed a slow, heated kiss to his chest. Within minutes he took her again, letting her lead, letting her set the pacing of the coupling. This time she sunk down on him with confidence and moved quickly into the same rhythm as before. She was a fast learner, but then he had always known that, and he let himself get carried away with the delicious things he could teach her in this room.

Her climax came swiftly, and he brought her to completion again before he let himself release inside her, his body strung tight like an archer's bow.

They lay after with her back to his chest, her perfect behind nestled into him as he laved the salt from her neck.

“You are not a good man,” she said after a time, and her tone held no accusation.

“No...” he agreed, “But you knew that.”

She was thinking, plotting and turning those quick wheels of hers and what he wouldn't give for a moment to peek inside and look at what lay there. She thought like he thought and that could only lead to the worst for him. Something he could not, would not, abide.

He prodded, taking a stab at the path her thoughts were following, hoping her relaxed state would see her slip. “Does it bother you, what happened to the whore?”

“Does it bother _you_? I am sure you lost some profit,” she said pointedly.

He said nothing, only continued to nibble at her sweet, sweet skin.

After a moment, she turned in his arms and propped herself up on an elbow. The fire had run so low now it was barely embers and the sconces had long petered out to nothing. He could barely make out her features in the darkness.

“So what secrets would you like to share with me?”

Ah yes, he had promised her hadn't he? What a wicked man he was to lie to a woman to get the upper hand, to get her in his bed.

He was silent for a time, until she shoved his shoulder. “I am trying to decide which would be the least distressing to tell you first,” he said with a small smirk, that although he knew she couldn't see, she would hear in his voice.

“How about a deal?” She traced her finger across his collarbone and he hummed.

“I like deals.”

“You answer my question, then I shall answer yours,” she said as those playful fingers moved lower, trailing softly at his navel. “Truthfully, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Why did you bring those whores to the castle? You knew Jon would be furious with you if he found out.” Her fingers had stilled, tapping gently against his stomach. Clever girl, he thought and smiled into the darkness, but he knew this game well – he had taught it to countless numbers of his girls. Tongues of men at the mercy of beautiful women were prone to loosen, spilling secrets that they sometimes even denied themselves. Perhaps he could wrest some truths from her tonight.

He decided it would interest him very much to play.

“I wanted to sow discord between the Wildlings and the King,” he replied honestly, because why couldn't she know? If he gave her the small, harmless truths she would think herself in control. “I gave those barbarians a bottomless account, knowing it would only be a matter of time before one went too far.”

“You could not have known they would kill a girl.”

He grimaced, yes that had been an oversight. “I was hoping for a...less severe incident.”

“I was wondering where Tormund had gotten himself to,” she said absently.

"Yes, he was quite the frequent customer." He moved then and turned towards her, letting his thumb graze along her waist. “My turn.” She said nothing but her breath hitched as his fingers skimmed her hipbone. “What did you hope to achieve with...this?”

He felt her shrug. “I want you on my side,” she said and did not elaborate.

“Oh no,” he said, “I need more than that.”

“Fine,” she huffed, “I suppose I thought that if I could seduce you then you would be more willing to help me out of this ridiculous arrangement.”

“You mean when your attempts to manipulate me with guilt failed?”

“Ah, you noticed that...”

“Of course I did, my love,” he said, like scolding a child, “remember who taught you...”

She huffed again, but said nothing, clearly not willing to give him any more.

“Your turn,” he prompted her.

She thought for a moment and brought her hands back to his chest, worrying the hairs there. “How-” Her voice broke off for a moment and he heard her take a deep breath. “...how did you not know? About Ramsay.”

“Contrary to what you may think, I am not infallible,” he said.

“You thought I would be able to control him...” she started, still tugging gently at his chest hair, “That he was a normal man.”

He sighed heavily and rubbed a hand over his face. “I had heard nothing about him. He was nothing – a bastard son of some Lord in the North. He played me well. I was convinced he had taken one look at you and had his breath stolen from him, much like I did. I promise you, I did not know.”

The words poured out of him and he let the genuine remorse fill his tone. It was all true, all honest and unhindered. His greatest mistake, yes, meaning an unforeseen shift to his plans. He felt a burden lift from him.

Sansa shook with what could have been a sob, and unthinking he pulled her close. When her face met his chest, it was dry.

“I believe you,” she whispered and for a very long time he did nothing but hold her. He wondered if this was as close to true intimacy as he would ever get. He had felt nothing for Lysa as she spooned and drooled over him every night after their coupling in the Eyrie. Nothing like the warm, protective need he felt with this girl, Cat's daughter, here in his arms.

Her voice was quiet but steady when she spoke again. “Your turn.”

He kissed her head and rubbed her arms. “You still want to play?”

“Is that your question?” she teased, some of the life now rushing back into her. She really was made of stern stuff, this one. And she was definitely after all of his secrets.

He let the silence lie as he pondered his next question. How could he phrase what he truly wanted to know? Some half-formed plot from long ago drifted into his mind and he seized on the idea. 

“You have killed one husband, could you kill another?”

She did not move, not a muscle, and he was concerned he had gone too far.

“You want me to kill Willas Tyrell,” she said calmly.

“I am asking if you could,” he said as he let his hands rub soothing circles on her back.

“Why?”

“Because if you could, then I can help you,” he reasoned.

“Is this what you do? Bed noble ladies and convince them to murder their husbands,” she asked, pushing herself up slightly to meet where his gaze would be in the dark. He stayed silent and he feared he may have drawn in a breath too sharply because her tone was triumphant. “I know about Jon Arryn. That you had Aunt Lysa poison him.”

“Do you now?” He kept his voice steady, but was frantically trying to remember at what point she could have discovered this secret. Had Lysa told her, perhaps as a threat? Had he inadvertently hinted to her? 

Sansa brought her lips to a point just below his ear and his mind came racing to a halt. She said softly, “When she held me over the moon door; she said she had killed for you. It wasn't hard to guess who.” He said nothing, worrying that any words may incriminate him further. She had no proof, only a hunch. Her teeth nibbled at the sensitive spot of skin on his neck and he groaned. “Fine. You don't need to tell me. But I fail to see how it would help me.”

“It would require...some sacrifice on your behalf." He gasped as her lips continued to tease there way down his neck. "And the timing would have to be right."

“You mean I would have to bed him.” Her tongue licked at the hollow of his throat and she moved so she was straddling him. “Do wicked things to him...” She ground her hips down and he felt himself harden underneath her. He could feel how wet she was already, rubbing wantonly against his manhood. She gasped at the fresh contact but continued her assault on his neck. “...make him fall in love with me...bear his child...” He bucked underneath her, trying to find some friction but she had him pinned with her strong thighs. Somehow her hands had found their way into the hair at the nape of his neck and she tugged sharply, exposing the column of his throat. “And then plunge a knife into his heart.”

At that she sank her teeth hard into his neck, causing him to cry out loudly at the unexpected pain. He thrust his hips again and this time she obliged, rubbing the tip of him along her folds and sinking down on to him in one smooth motion. He was pitifully grateful for the contact.

Petyr looked up and he could only make out her form in the grey darkness, risen up above him rocking ever so gently against his pelvis, her skin seemed luminescent in the scant light. She was a wondrous thing, like this, and he marveled at her ability to transform from wounded victim to goddess. But she had always taken instruction well.

Sansa placed her hands on his chest, stilling her hips and looking down at him. He wondered how much she could see in the dimness, whether she enjoyed the look of the man that brought her pleasure between her silken thighs, or perhaps despite of him. It was a petty, silly thought. Insecurity like that was for fools, but there was still part of the boy in him that _wanted_ to be wanted. This beautiful woman above him, surrounding him, would play him for a fool.

She did not move though he could feel her walls pulsing. Slowly, so as not to scare her with a sudden movement, he sat up, bringing his lips to the soft shell of her ear. “You didn't answer my question.” He punctuated his statement with a sharp thrust of his hips into her hers. Her breath caught. He kissed down her neck, threatening retribution with little scrapes of his teeth and he felt her clench around him again. “I thought we were being honest with each other.”

She moaned in frustration, trying to move against him but he stilled her hips with a firm grip. He smiled against her collarbone, tasting the sweat beading up on her skin. He would never eat again for that sweet tang against his tongue.

“Would I kill him?” she gasped, arching her back so that he could lave her there as well. He obliged, for her words. A reward for her answer. “I know what you want...to hear,” she panted as he pulled her taught nipple between his teeth.

“No, no...the truth now,” he chided, letting his nails rake down her ribs. She made another small noise of annoyance.

Sansa pulled his head up, fingers tangled in the rough curls that had escaped from their neat confines during their coupling. Then for the first time that night, she brought her lips to his, roughly, harshly as if she were punishing him.

He growled against her mouth and she bit out, drawing blood. Then as soon as it had started she stopped, pulling back.

“The truth?” she said, her tone hard. “I would kill any man who tried to hurt me again.”

Before he could question her further she crushed her lips against his, this time deepening the kiss so that her tongue slid into his waiting mouth. As it did, she began to move against him again, and he rocked up into her. He felt her legs come to wrap around his waist, her thighs squeezing tightly to bring him deeper inside her. Her breasts were pressed tight against his chest as she kissed along his jaw and brought her lips to his ear, feeling her hot breath come in short, quick pants.

He was lost now, lost in her and their movements and the way she felt around him. Her walls began to flutter and he hurried his pace, hoping to chase her into her peak, needing to feel them fall apart together. It was as imperative as breathing.

Sansa shuddered around him, her hands clenching and unclenching against his back, holding so tight she could bruise him.

And all at once it was like a curtain wall had crumbled, fallen down, down beneath the winter winds, bowing finally to the incessant force. He came, begging her name into her silken neck, shaking and gasping against her perfect skin.

The collapsed together, her head in the crook of his neck, legs and arms and everything tangled as the sweat dried in the cooling room.

Through the fog of his thoughts, drowsy and listless, he heard her speak and it may have only been in his dreams, “You will betray me.”

~~~

The morning came as dull and dark and cold as the rest. Petyr was loathe to move from his nest. Sansa slept tangled in the furs and sheets, her hair matted and spread across the pillows, the coppery red a beautiful contrast against the creamy white of the linen.

He slipped out of the bed and cursed the frigid air, rushing for his breeches and shirt. He dressed hurriedly in the previous nights wrinkled clothes and throwing his thick cloak over the top to hide his sin of inelegance. It would not take him long on his errand.

Moving with stealth in the grey light, he made it down to the courtyard and steeled himself before opening the large braced doors to cold. The snow whipped around him in a blinding frenzy, nipping at his skin, leaving it raw and red. He trudged in minutes to the small outbuilding but still he was frozen through by the time he reached the door.

To his dismay, the door had been left ajar, a small heap of snow had collected in the open doorway. Inside, the warm fires had been snuffed out and the sumptuous silks and pillows torn and slashed. It was a mockery of the same scene he had faced in King's Landing after the Faith Militant had declared his business a slight to the Seven.

He took a minute to wonder where the remaining girls had spent the evening, hopefully in the warm bed of some Vale Knight or Northern soldier. He would hate to think his investments had run off to freeze to death in the storm.

It did not matter. There was no permanence in this world, and contrary to appearance, spent little time dwelling on material loss. As long as he moved ever forward, ever upward, he would burn a hundred whore houses to the ground.

His eyes went to the chest in the corner of the room, and he was pleased to see it was untouched. The bottom drawer revealed his prize: a small muslin bag, tied tight with pink ribbon. He pocketed it, then return to the Keep.

She was awake bolt upright when he re-entered the room, furs pulled tight around her in a semblance of modesty, her blue eyes wide and alarmed. He saw her relax as he shut the door behind him.

“I thought you were the chambermaid,” she said by way of explanation.

“No, too early. There is time for you to get back to your rooms, virtue intact.” He removed his cloak then moved to sit beside her on the bed, absently stroking one bare arm.

“Where did you go?”

“To fetch this,” he said and pulled the precious bag from his pocket.

Sansa frowned at him. “What is it?”

“Moon tea.”

A look of comprehension dawned on her face and she snatched the bag from his hands, pulling the ribbon and revealing the herbs inside. “What do I do with it?”

“Brew a small amount, but don't let the water boil. Then drink it once it's cool.”

“How often do I need to drink it?”

“Within a day and a night of...” he gestured between them, his meaning clear. The girl had also inadvertently answered his unsaid question on whether this was to become a regular occurrence. He was sore and tired but there had not been many a night like the one they had shared in his life. He would gladly sacrifice sleep, and his aching back, to continue their affair until she left for the South.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

“While this was extremely enjoyable, I do not wish for there to be any unnecessary complications,” he said stressing his meaning, “You are to be wed soon.”

She winced, but said nothing of his reminder of her betrothal. He put a caring hand to her face, letting his thumb glide softly over her lips. They were plump and swollen. He let his gaze travel down over the red marks and faint bruises he had caused over her pale shoulders. They would have to be more careful not to leave marks where others would see them.

“Come, my lady,” he said, standing swiftly, “Let us ready and face the world today.”

~~~

The storm – the one that all the Northern men swore would break in days – only worsened. The snows fell faster than they could be cleared and the King gave the order to hunker down and ration the food and fuel until it passed. The Great Hall was closed, the hearths too greedy in heating the large space, and the soldiers were ordered to sleep and eat in close quarters to conserve their precious resources. The North men knew this routine well, many had lived through harsher winters than this, a fact they loved to spout when any of the Vale Knights grumbled of the cold.

Petyr had spent some time thinking on his options as the storm battered the stoic stone walls. He set about securing the men he would be able to count on if prospects here in the North turned sour, and found to his surprise that many of his Knights were disgruntled with the King. Jon Snow had banished the whores to Winter town, and now the snows trapped them in the castle. Only a foolhardy man would attempt a jaunt through the unforgiving storm outside.

A steward boy of the King's, a quiet lad of fifteen, had met a sad, unfortunate end doing much the same after drinking and whoring in the village, wandering off into the snow drifts to freeze. It just so happened Petyr had found a perfect replacement for Snow, a squire from the Vale with a sharp mind and a knack for following orders. Of course, he hadn't been too clear on exactly whose orders the boy would be following.

And on and on the winds howled and raged day and night with little respite. Days turned to weeks and the small rooms of the castle became their only sanctuary. Petyr found he did not mind; a winter storm could be a welcome thing when he had a warm willing woman in his his bed with Tully-red hair.

Sansa's seduction had been a clever ploy, but it did not take him long to find his bearings with her once more. Now his steady ship was on course and he had the Lady of Winterfell in a very compromising position. They were cautious and discreet, seeking each other out in the dead of night and reluctantly leaving the furs before the castle woke.

She came to him, more often than not, and he had a feeling that her Lady guard was some how complicit in the act. The hulking Brienne was often conveniently nowhere to be found when Sansa arrived at his door, wrapped like a present in her furs and under garments.

He wondered how far he could push her with his skill as a lover alone, how much he could bend her to his will while he wrung his own pleasure from her soft skin. After all there was no reason for him to tire of her so soon and she certainly seemed a keen and eager lover. The girl had soon stopped plying for him to save her from man pledged to be her husband, though he could still see those wheels turning in her pretty head.

Sansa continued to petition her brother to let her live out the rest of her days as a spinster here at Winterfell, to let her just be the twice widowed daughter of Ned Stark. A more appealing option he was sure, especially if she thought her loyal Lord Baelish would stay here to service her until they were old and grey.

As much as the thought held some appeal, Petyr now found himself eager to move, climb and drag himself out of the avalanche of snow and ice he had been buried in. He burned at the thought of creating new opportunities for advancement. His frozen fingers thawed and flexed.

In the worst of the winter, he had found a new vitality, a piece of himself he thought had been consumed by this harsh, strange land. He wrapped himself in the furs of the northmen, warming his bones back to life.

And when the storm broke, he would deliver the Lady of Winterfell to Willas Tyrell, like a prize horse broken in.

Or perhaps, if the winds turned and she outlived her usefulness, to Cersei Lannister and her waiting spike.

~~~

He watched her, sometimes without realising, and he would catch himself and look away hoping no one else had noticed. He felt greedy with need, lustful thoughts stealing into his ordered mind as unwelcome enemies. 

He dragged his sinful mind back to the small council meeting, now relocated to the smaller room of the King's solar to conserve warmth and fuel. There had been discussion of the provisions, Ser Davos noting that they were still well stocked for months of harsher weather, then talk had turned to other matters and Petyr had drifted. He noted now that the meeting was concluding and the few present there had begun to take their leave.

Sansa rose with grace, stopping only to kiss her brother on his cheek. Her eyes met his then across the room and he answered the question in those blue depths with a tiny nod of his head. He watched her back as she turned and left.

Petyr waited a few minutes then followed, making sure to nod his pleasantries on his way out of the small council. Snow still did not trust him, but several weeks of good behaviour and a grovelling apology had gone a ways to making amends with the dour boy. If only the King knew the debauchery he played with the Lady Sansa deep under the pelts of his rooms.

Outside the evening was still and dark, the crisp snowfall muffling the chatter of the castle and he trudged his way through the deep drifts to the Keep that housed her rooms.

The staircase wound up and up and he could feel his heart hammering in chest as he closed the distance to her chambers. There was a difference in the air tonight, the winds had dropped and he felt like he could breathe.

He turned the handle to her rooms and he found them dark, the roaring fire the only source of light. Shadows flickered and it took him a moment to find her form. She stood silhouetted in the window, looking out onto the castle grounds below. Long fingers touched against the glass, dragging claw-like rivulets in the condensation.

“The snows have stopped,” she remarked. “It will not be long before I'm sent away.” Her tone was distant, and casual.

He had noticed, of course he had. It would only give him a few days now to make arrangements, to ensure that he would be able to slip away if things turned foul. His hands were clean for all to see but Snow's suspicions of him may be all

He moved to wrap his arms around her and brought his lips to her bare neck, inhaling the sweet smell of soaps and salt. She sighed but did not turn around.

“Come to bed, Sansa,” he murmured against her soft skin, nipping gently at the sensitive spot below her ear.

She said nothing, but pushed away from him and walked towards her bed, shedding her outer layers of clothing as she went.

He claimed her quickly first, and then slowly, taking his time to give her a pleasure he was sure she would never feel once in the arms of her crippled Lord. Perhaps it would serve as a reminder of how she was to come back to him. Perhaps she had learned enough in his bed to twist Willas Tyrell to her own machinations, and perhaps she was capable of plotting her own husbands demise. But she was also hardened enough to try and turn her new Lord against the scheming Littlefinger, the man who had currupted her so, and use it to seize her own power in the South. Either way, come the moment she left this bed and arrived at Highgarden, she was lost to him.

In truth, as much as it saddened him, he could not trust her. He had made her in his own image and foolishly let her slip from his grasp, both playing a silly game of tug against the other. He had been ambitious with her, but also blinded by her beauty and her strength, his fierce little wolf. But like a wolf she was wild and would not be controlled by him or any other, nor would she ever be content at a life of humble domesticity.

And as soon as the sun rose he would send his raven, with a necessary betrayal carried on those dark wings.

He lay for a long time that night, watching her gentle sleep and so he was awake when Brienne of Tarth barrelled down her unlocked door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have read **so much** smut in my life, from across a multitude of fandoms, and yet this was by far the most difficult thing I have ever, ever written.
> 
> But...it's done. Bugger me. Hope you liked it.


	7. The Disquieting Heir

There was a moment of sickening silence. Petyr noticed that the wind had indeed dropped and he had not turned deaf. He dared not move, as though if he stayed still enough Brienne might not notice his presence in her Lady's bed. A ridiculous thought, but his mind stuttered, grasping for some explanation that he could peddle to six foot of hulking, righteous, sword-wielding rage.

Brienne stood with a heavy frown marring her over-large features but said nothing, as the girl beside him stirred from under the thick furs. 

“Brienne? What is it?” Sansa mumbled, her voice thick from sleep.

The tall woman found her voice at last, and straightened in her gleaming armour. Petyr wondered vaguely if she slept in it.

“My Lady, you must come at once. It's your brother.”

“Jon?” Sansa asked, confused. “What does he want?”

“No, not the King. Your brother, my lady: Brandon Stark.”

~~~

They dressed quickly and in strained silence, her throwing a dressing gown over her nightwear, and slipping stockinged feet into thick boots. Petyr decided to dress fully, as if to reinforce the fact that he had not been roused from the Lady of Winterfell's chambers. He fleetingly contemplated donning some mail in case Brienne decided to jump out in the stairwell and cut him down with her broadsword.

He let Sansa race ahead of him and across the courtyard. She was frantic and mindless of the snows that surely drenching the tails of her nightgown. Petyr cursed as she slipped carelessly on the frozen ground, landing hard. He hurried after her, and hauled her to her feet, guiding her the rest of the way to the Great Keep. his hand tight by her elbow.

The King's solar was full, but at the very least it was warm and dry. Brienne had gone on ahead and menaced in the corner of the room, hand on her sword hilt as she eyed him. It was a level glare, full of disdain, but it appeared that she had kept her Ladies' confidence for the time.

Snow stood by the hearth, dressed in his sleepwear but sodden from the knee down. His great furred cloak was thrown haphazardly over his shoulders and his sword belt hung low on his hip, ludicrous against the casual wool of his nightshirt.

The other man in the room he recognised as a guard, one of his own from the Vale, standing to attention at the door. The man was dressed in full plate and wrapped up against the chill; clearly on watch this evening, and the melting snow dripped from his helm.

“Bran!” Sansa cried and broke free of his loose grasp as she ran to a huddle of what Petyr had originally assumed was a pile of bear pelts on the floor by the fire. A small, brown head of hair peaked from the top. He watched as Sansa flung herself to the ground and pulled the boy into a desperate embrace.

The boy was small, and clearly very weak but accepted the hug with good grace. “Sansa,” he croaked thinly. “I've missed you.”

Sansa sobbed and stroked her hands disbelievingly down the boy's face, her face a startling mixture of joy, relief and sadness.

Petyr looked away; it was too intimate and the frank emotion on the girl's face unnerved him. Only hours before she had been writhing underneath him as he pulled moans of pleasure from her lips, revelling in the power of being the man who saw this woman's truest self. He looked instead at Jon Snow, and the boy was working hard to keep his face calm and stoic, but it was clear the sudden appearance of his long-lost sibling was denting the King's battlements. Had the reunion between half sister and brother had been quite so sweet as this, he wondered. 

At least Sansa's relief was genuine, her face unguarded as she let the tears roll down her cheeks and into the boy's deep brown hair. Pulling back, she brought her hands to Bran's face, touching his pale cheeks. “You're frozen," she said.

“I'll be alright. I'm a Stark.”

Sansa smiled at that, then looked at Bran with wonder. “How? How are you alive?”

“...I don't know,” the boy said, and Petyr saw that this young lord was hiding something. “We got to Castle Black – the Lord Commander gave us a horse and some provisions. Then the weather turned and I couldn't see- I couldn't see anything.” Bran stopped himself and looked about the room. “We ran out of food and then the horse died. We ate the horse... we found a weirwood to shelter under.” He looked at Sansa and smiled, an odd set of the mouth given his words, “I thought we would die. Then I realised I was nearly home.” The boy seemed to remember something and panic came over him as he attempted to move from his huddled position on the floor, shuffling forward with his arms. “Meera! Where is she?”

“The girl?” Snow spoke for the first time addressing the guard who lurked near the door.

“In the kitchens, my lord, being warmed,” the guard said. “She was not in a good way when the Wildlings found them.”

“And are they still with her?”

“Your Grace?”

“The Free Folk – are they still with her?” Snow asked with thinning patience.

“No, Your Grace-”

“Go. Get Tormund to send his best healers to the kitchens. No one knows how to stop the cold like the Free Folk," ordered Snow.

“At once, Your Grace.” The guard nodded and left the room.

Petyr noticed then that Sansa was still crying with silent tears rolling down her face, grasping at her brother as thought if she did not touch him for a moment then he would disappear. He ignored the urge to go to her, pushing the sentiment down, crushing it beneath hard pragmatism.

“Meera...” the boy gasped, clutching and pulling at his sister. 

“Shhh, Bran, she will be fine," she soothed. "And you're safe now, you're both safe.”

The boy looked up at Sansa then, eyes dark, but said nothing.

Snow sat then in his Father's great wooden chair by the fire, weary and heavy, running a tired hand over his face. “Why Bran? Why did you go beyond the wall when you escaped from Theon? You could have come to Castle Black.” Petyr, for once, had to agree with him and his exasperation. It seemed a very stupid thing to do: to venture into a place where even men of the Night's Watch sometimes did not return.

Bran was sheepish but said nothing, looking into the great piles of fur that surrounded him, picking at the hairs with thin fingers.

Sansa's voice was quiet but steady, “Have you seen them?”

Whispers of creatures and ungodly things that lurked in the North was still ever-present in the Castle. Petyr still, as a practical man, refused to listen to the rantings of wild men or the ghost stories that these Northerners insisted on sharing around the fires to spook the Southern men. But still, ever so slowly, this hardy scepticism was chipped away by a fear of something _Other_ that he could not explain. It felt like cold water crawling wrongly up his back.

“Yes,” said the boy, his eyes still low but he had begun to shake.

“Bran,” Snow said with patience but there was a hint of warning in his voice. “...what do you know?”

Petyr thought it an odd question. He would have perhaps started with something simple: where have you been? How are you alive? How many of these supposedly deathless creatures are there heading this way?

But he kept silent and watched as Bran's face twisted in a wry and awful smile. The boy looked at Snow, with eyes that seemed far too old and too wise for his young face. Petyr felt a tingle of fear rush his veins like chilling wind. He suddenly wanted to be anywhere other than here. 

“Winter is coming.”

~~~

Brandon Stark, the true heir to Winterfell, was taken to be dressed and fed and warmed.

Petyr took a moment outside the solar to find his trusty steward. The boy had been asleep when the boy and his companion had been hauled in from the cold, so his ears and eyes were useless, but now he could be put to work.

“Go to the kitchens. Listen to what the girl Meera Reed says when she wakes....if she wakes.”

The boy nodded, and hurried away.

Petyr turned and found Sansa standing watching him, an unreadable expression on her pale face. Her eyes were still read from her tears.

She moved towards him and took his hand, looking at the adornments there strangely. He said nothing as she turned his palm over, only leaning in to her and wishing they were not in such a public place for otherwise he would claim her mouth with greed. What did she look for? Blood. There was certainly plenty of that.

Sansa ran a finger across his wrist as if drawing a line, and he thought perhaps she was taking some comfort in this small contact. Was he the closest thing she had? The thought made an uncomfortable lump rise in his throat.

After a minute, she spoke. Her voice was held still. “I have to tell him. About Mother, Robb...Rickon.” Petyr nodded dumbly, the wretched ball of something still lodged firmly in his neck. Reliving the loss of her family would be difficult, she was already steeped in shock at seeing a brother returned from the dead. “I don't know how he has survived this long.” She stared at a point, somewhere past his shoulder. “He was just a boy when I left for King's Landing.”

“And you were just a girl,” he reminded her.

“A lifetime ago.” Her words were sad but not bitter, and it soothed him. He could not stand the sound of hardness, the brittle lilt that sometimes crept into her voice. It made him uncomfortable to think he was one who put it there. He brought his hand to cover hers, letting his thumb rub light circles. “Perhaps he simply learned to survive.” _Like you_ , he wanted to add.

And then, for lack of anything else to say, he asked, “Do you think he will challenge your brother's claim?”

Her head snapped up and the glare she gave him was hot enough to turn his rings to slag. “Is that all you think about?” she said and he could tell she fought to keep her voice level and quiet in the corridor. “Your plots? The next move?” Her mouth hardened to a thin line, her pink lips stretched white. “Don't you dare try to use Bran against Jon. Or me.”

He felt guilt pool, a filling chastisement from the toe up. Then he felt foolish for being made to feel guilty by a girl that he would soon sell in order to make his way back into the game. He ignored the way her stare cut through him, and smirked. “I am only thinking of your future, my love.” He used the endearment with scorn and relished how she flinched.

“You are disgusting.”

Petyr only raised an amused eyebrow in response. “Perhaps it would be better to move first, before your Lady Knight reveals how _loyal_ you are to me. She did find you in a rather compromising position.”

Her eyes narrowed, “Brienne will say nothing. Unless I ask her to.”

She dropped his hand with her threat - which made him only then realise it had still been in her grasp - and walked away.

~~~

It was only half a day before the small council was summoned to the King's solar. He had paced his rooms, contemplating the parchment in his hands. Now that the wind had dropped and the storm had passed he would be able to send a raven without fear of the bird being blown too far off course, and the missive reaching the wrong eyes.

The tight cursive script wavered and warped as though the ink were breathing.

_...I pledge myself and the armies I control as Lord Protector of the Vale, the Lord Paramount of the Trident, to the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms..._

He read the line again and cursed. He felt weak, beholden. What was preventing him from tying this scrap of a thought to a bird and sending it South? It was not loyalty - that was a folly for the weak and weak minded - no this was something else. There was a curdling in his gut that made him stay his hand for now, telling him to wait and see. Things will come, it said, and things will pass and you will not be able to take these words back.

With a growl of frustration he tore the parchment and threw the offending pieces in the fire, taking little pleasure in watching them burn.

Intuition was not a familiar feeling to him. He was rational, practical man that valued a well thought plan and logical reasoning. The boy that had tumbled onto the doorstep of this castle was making the hairs on his neck stand on end, creating a presence that Petyr could not see or grasp. It made his well-ordered mind want to scream and writhe away from the charge in the air. People moved, or were movable, by known quantities and observable forces, not spirits or gods or by the fancy of fates. Being in the presence of the boy made him want to claw at his skin and scream.

He decided he would wait on sending the missive, there was no reason to jump into an abyss because of imaginary hounds on his tail. But it would only be for a few days to see what became of this new heir, this Brandon Stark. Either way, the choice must be made before the dear Lady of Winterfell was sent South to her betrothed or he may have squandered his last opportunity to build himself a route out of this desolate place.

~~~

Petyr was surprised to see Ser Davos lingering at the doors to the Keep, leaning against the rough hewn wall with his arms crossed. The man's barracks were with the more senior soldiers in the guest quarters and he rarely, if ever, need to set foot in this part of the castle.

“Ser Davos, are you here to escort me to the small council meeting? I am flattered by your concern for my virtue,” he said as he descended the last of the stone staircase.

“Shut your smart mouth Baelish,” he growled. “I wanted to talk to you. Alone.”

“I am listening.”

“This boy – Brandon Stark – have you met him before?” Davos asked.

“You don't trust the word of his sister and brother?”

"It's not that. He just make me think-" The older man shrugged and roughed his beard. "There is something at work there that I don't like."

"What do you suggest? The boy is the King's brother," Petyr said. 

“I don't know. First, the lad is dead – burned by all accounts. He escaped the Ironborn, fine. But then he's spotted at the wall, travelling the wrong bloody way, and refusing help to take him to Castle Black. Why would any man, sane or not, willingly take themselves up there? Now he's back, with a half-dead girl, and it's like he took a stroll in along the beach.” Davos shook his head and chewed his lip. “I've only known one other like that, and I have no wish to meet another like her again.”

The Red Woman. Petyr had seen her only once and felt a similar grating urge to remove himself from her presence. Those eyes - much like Bran's - seemed to find the darkest point of him and drag it out. She was beautiful in a way that set him on edge, a way that his eyes could not tear themselves away from. He had felt the power of beauty in many forms but the worst of it had been in her shadow.

"We shall stay wary," he assured Davos, and found himself meaning those words.

He followed the Onion Knight into the solar and found the whole council assembled, already deep in discussion with the newly arrive Stark boy.

“...it would be prudent to know how real the threat is from beyond the wall,” Royce was saying, full of his usual pomp. “We have had no word from Castle Black since the storm descended.”

Petyr met Seaworth's eyes as the older man took his seat to Jon's right, then moved to where they always inextricably did. Sansa looked wan, clutching tightly to the hand of her younger brother sat beside her still bundled up in furs. Some colour had returned to Bran's cheeks and the young Lord sat straight in his chair though his eyes were fixed firmly on the table before him, his fingernails worrying at the wood.

“Bran?” Snow prompted.

“How is Meera? No one has said anything,” the boy replied, not deigning to answer the question.

“She may lose some fingers, some toes perhaps, but she will live,” Tormund said gruffly as if the loss of digits were a trifling thing.

“She's a Reed, you say?” crowed Royce. “Has anyone sent word to her father?”

Snow shook his head. “We can't. Greywater Watch cannot be found by ravens.” At the older Lord's moue of confusion, he clarified. “It moves.”

Royce muttered something about the oddness of Northmen under his breath which the table ignored, but Petyr felt want to agree with. He knew little of the Reeds, only that they were Stark bannermen, and the girl's father Lord Howland was loyal to a fault. The man was an eccentric and noted for his implacable nature and tiny stature. When he had been younger, Petyr had felt an odd sort kinship with the little Lord that had risen from belittlement and obscurity to become a warrior famed for saving the life of the noble Eddard Stark.

But the boy before them did not claim to be a fierce warrior and neither did he strike Petyr as being the type for scheming and subterfuge. He could see Ser Davos' uneasiness in his periphery.

“It still does not explain how you managed to find your way to Winterfell in the midst of that storm,” Petyr stated.

The Stark boy said nothing and his eyes did not raise.

“Stannis lost two hundred of men trying to do the same, and that was even before the Winter had come truly,” Davos pushed.

Petyr watched Sansa squeeze her brother's hand, the sweet gesture making his hackles rise. “Bran, you need to tell them. Tell them what you told me,” she said with the calm assurance of a caregiver, a mother.

Bran looked hesitant but began to talk, “There are... things I can see. It's a gift.” The table was silent and every face Petyr saw had furrowed brows. “I have a...connection...to something. The old gods. The heart trees. Wherever they can see, I can see.” The boy blushed but raised his chin, and Petyr felt his lip curl at that common Stark gesture of strength and defiance.

“The three-eyed raven,” Tormund whispered, and all turned to look at the large man's eyes, wide and spooked, “The one with green eyes.”

“This is starting to sound a lot like the type of shit I really don't like,” grunted Davos, moving to rise from the table, but Snow stilled him with a touch on his arm. “I've had my fill of prophecies and witchcraft, My Lord.”

Bran shook his head with fervour. “No. That's not me! The Red Woman brought Jon back from the dead. She could see the future in her flames. I can't do that. I don't follow her God.”

“And yet you know all of this,” the Onion Knight accused.

“Lord Commander Tollett told me,” he admitted with a sheepish tilt of his mouth, “But, Mother, Robb and Rickon. I _know_. I saw it.”

The lad was so earnest, his cheeks pink now from the warmth of the room and passion. Petyr did not know what to think, only that he would take any words of supernatural powers and second sights the same as he took the word of any other man; with healthy scepticism and distrust.

“If you can see the future, boy, then why not tell us how to win this war?” The Lord Royce's self-satisfied smirk was not met by any other in the room.

“No, it doesn't work like that!” Bran protested. “I can only see what has _already_ happened.”

For the smallest of seconds, the boy's eyes met his own and Petyr felt a harsh freezing grip close tight around his chest, as if a boulder of ice had fallen from a great height to crush his lungs. Then Brandon Stark looked away. And he could breathe again.

Sansa, nor anyone else seemed to pay the exchange any mind, and she tugged at her brother's hand, coaxing him. “Have you seen Arya?” she asked. “Is she alive?”

Bran nodded then, after a moment's pause, shook his head. “I don't know. It was...confusing. She was with a man. His face was burned.”

“The Hound,” said Brienne, her face as sharp as her tone. “I left him for dead, then Arya ran. I regret I could not convince her to come with me. But we already knew all of this.”

“She went to a port and gave a man a strange coin,” Bran said. “She said... _Valar Morghulis_ and he replied... _Valar Dohaeris_.” He frowned. “I don't know what it means...”

“All men must die, all men must serve,” Petyr said quietly and ignored the questioning eyes on him. It had been years since he heard those words; a frequent saying from his father whenever the world would not turn the way he liked. A stoic motto, a reminder of his place. How he _loathed_ those words. “It is High Valyrian. She was heading to Braavos,” he clarified.

Royce asked, “Braavos? Why on earth would the girl head there?”

Brienne frowned and spoke again, “She was skittish and untrusting when I came across her. Not surprising...considering nearly her whole family had been slaughtered.”

“And you haven't...” Snow fumbled, searching for the right words, “...“ _seen_ ” Arya since then?”

Bran spoke softly, “No. As soon as she boarded the boat I could only sense her, as if I could hear her voice through thick fog. Then it faded. I lost her.” He hesitated then, eyes flitting to his sister still pale and stoic at his side. “I thought...I thought I heard her again, thought I saw her. But it wasn't her: I saw another girl, I don't know who. She was a kitchen maid, rolling pastry for a pie.”

“Are you sure it wasn't Arya?” asked Sansa, her eyes pleading.

“She was a serving girl. I only see things. I do not know anything.”

Snow flinched but kept his dark eyes on the younger boy. Petyr wondered whether the White Wolf had sniffed out the same unease that had set himself and Ser Davos on edge. Brandon Stark claimed he had this gift of sight, a bold statement even among the superstitious Northerners. Whether they were true or not, the cripple had certainly set his teeth on edge.

“And what have you seen beyond the wall?” Davos asked, fear apparent in his voice. “Have you seen what is coming?”

Bran turned white so quickly it caused Sansa to gasp and clutch at his hand. “ _I have seen them with my own eyes._ ” The boy choked and his eyes rolled back in his head, and a voice like rasping fetid hell came from his gaping mouth. “ _Eyes like blue frost, riding on the winds of winter. A hoard army of skeletons and corpses. With every one fallen their might grows._ ” Petyr swallowed but could not turn his eyes from the shaking child. “ _They will not stop. They do not know how. Burn the dead. Burn the men, the women, the children. Burn them all. Before they take us. Burn them all_.”

There was a moment of cold, dead air.

Then Bran slumped forward on the table as if all life had left him, and Sansa began to shake her brother with frantic worry.

Petyr looked down and saw bloody half moon marks carved into his palm. He was breathing fast, and he suspected he was as pale as the faces around him, white and beaded with fearful sweat. Tormund had his hand on his dagger, the blade half unsheathed. The Wildling man looked ready to bolt from the room, and only the steadiness of his leader kept him seated.

“Bran...” Sansa begged, “Bran, wake up.”

“Enough,” Snow said with finality, wresting control and standing. The boy had an uncanny ability to stare down such unnatural things with the same way he faced his morning meal. Petyr began to entertain the thought that there may be more things beyond the wall that soft, Southern men like him should not see and this man, their King in the North, may have the right of them. “I have heard enough. We already knew the threat from the North is real. We need to act.”

There was still silence around the table.

Eventually Davos found his voice, still eyeing the unconscious boy, “What shall we do, My Lord?"

“Ready a force of men, two thousand strong," Snow ordered. "They will go to the wall, along with two dozen ravens. I want an update every two days.”

“Your Grace,” Lord Royce interjected. “Would it not be wise to keep our full fighting force here?”

Jon Snow looked from his brother, then to the old Lord with a level gaze. The boy was supposedly raised from the dead by unseen powers. He was a tight, stern man with no patience for comfort, riches or power. He was also the only one not to be shaken by the ragged words that had oozed like tar and death from his brother's mouth. Snow turned to them all and the set of his mouth said he would broker no argument. “If the White Walkers come for us it won't matter.”


	8. The Hero's Tale

 

How did the stories go?

“ _Once...the world was different...once, long ago when there were no men in Westeros...”_

_Old words told around a warming fire, bellies full of boar and pheasant and succulent trout. Huddled together on the furs, four children with wide eyes greedy for this spinning of delicate tales, the stories of the origins of this land beneath their feet. The hush was broken only by the crackle of burning wood and the faint and ever-present rushing of the river underneath the stone._

“ _...No, this was a land of different beings – giants roamed across the North and the great forest was home to The Children._

“ _Not like you little ones, these were a people very different to you and I. They called themselves 'those who sing the song of the of the earth'. Some had the power of greensight – those that could see the future, the past and the truth of all things. Some, had the power to turn into ravens, and fly, fly, soaring high over the trees._

“ _This was their land. Until the First Men came._

“ _In time, the Children lost their land, their magic and so we lost the secrets of the forest. Though it is said that their blood still runs through some men's veins. And one day there will be a man who can fly like a bird once again.”_

Then what was it? He couldn't recall. The details were thin wisps in his memory, and trying to grasp onto them was like using a net to catch water.

They were old tales, older than the Kingdoms themselves.

As a child Petyr had been enraptured by the songs of the great heroes and their triumphs, the battles of gallant knights and fearsome warriors, epic tales of fair maidens and victories over insurmountable odds. Of dragons and wargs and White Walkers. As a boy he had memorised the words, the rhymes and spent hours upon hours in day dreams that recounted the Sonnet of the Noble, Fearless Lord Petyr of House Baelish.

He saw himself in gleaming green plate, the Head of the Titan embossed in fine blackened steel on his chest, or perhaps he would take the sigil of House Tully when he married his dearest Catelyn. Either way, he stood tall, with a one-handed sword of the sharpest Valyrian steel. He would lead armies and win battles with his wit and tactical prowess, he would joust in the King's tourneys and award his favour to his beautiful wife Cat, the truest queen of love and beauty.

That first tourney he had attended at Harrenhal, the young Petyr had been overwhelmed, bursting with childlike exuberance that he might see the finest swords in all the land. He vowewd that one day when the songs were played to his own court he would recount his tale to his children, the spectacle of seeing the great Arthur Dayne, or the unbeatable Prince Rhaegar Targaryen first hand.

It was the last time he could remember feeling pure, gleeful innocence.

Not long after came the last day he dreamt of his own pitiful sonnet, as it bled out of him into the waters of the The Red Fork, the tale carried away on the stream. No one would sing songs of a poor, beggar lord from the Fingers who failed to defend his ladies honour.

Afterwards, he had little time for legends and heroes and fables of mythical creatures and strange, child-like people with the power to see the world through their frightening trees. He discarded his dreams as he donned the armour of Littlefinger. He shunned the old gods, the new gods, the stories and the heroes. He drew power from his corn of the religious and superstitious alike.

He had been almost a man grown before he saw a true, wild weirwood tree for the first time, and he remembered sneering to cover the sudden pounding of his heart and the clamminess at his hands. Sometimes he would think with pity about his dearest Cat in the North, living among those ancient, disfigured things and the simple, backwards Northmen who worshipped beneath them.

But now there was this strange boy, a Stark of Winterfell, who claimed to know these old secrets.

The lingering feeling of unease had not left him since that first night. He watched Bran closely. Everyday for over a week, the lad would have a guard carry him out to the Godswood, and deposit him at the foot of the heart tree. There he would stay all day, with his hands on the white bark, eyes closed, until the sun began to set and the same guard would fetch him back inside the castle.

The boy spoke of things he had not heard of since he was a child, of things that had no business in Littlefinger's ordered, sensible world. 

How did the stories go?

_Once...once the world was different..._

~~~

He found the boy where he expected him, camped below the hearts tree, wrapped in furs that only served to emphasise how slight he was. Petyr watched the strange ritual, as Bran brought his gloved hand to the gaping maw that dripped with the blood red sap. The twisted face of the weirwood unsettled him more than usual, an etching of agony cut into unfeeling wood. Petyr felt as thought it should move, scream, or clamp down its howling mouth, but the wretched thing did not oblige and that only unnerved him more.

Suddenly, Bran jolted back, pulling away his hands from the tree as if burned. Then he turned his head and looked straight into Petyr's eyes, a gaze so penetrating it made him flinch.

“Lord Baelish,” the boy greeted with the politeness of the high born, seemingly unperturbed by his interruption.

“Lord Stark,” Petyr nodded.

The boy frowned at the title. “I would prefer it if you just called me Bran.”

“Then I insist you call me Petyr,” he said amiably, hands outstretched and welcoming.

Bran nodded but said nothing, and his fingers began to draw soft symbols in the snow.

Petyr moved to perch on a frosty log and sat before the boy. He felt the horrible gaze of the hearts tree on his back. “You _are_ the true Lord of Winterfell are you not? Eldest surviving son of the noble Lord Eddard,” he said.

Bran ignored the question. “Why are you here, Lord Baelish?” He sounded resigned. There was a heavy weariness in the lad; a hard, precocious maturity that settled in his shoulders and his words. He could not be more that fifteen, Petyr thought, around the same age his own childish expectations of the world had left him at the hands of this boy's Uncle and namesake. But the young Petyr Baelish had rebuilt himself with anger and vengeance, unlike this one before him who seemed full of a dark pessimism that he had only ever seen in the very old and the very nearly dead.

Petyr smiled warmly. “I simply thought it was past time that we get to know one another. I am Protector of a young Lord, you know, of a similar age to you. He is like a son to me.”

Bran looked at him with that same tilt of the head, the same blank assessment of his person that made Petyr feel as though all his clothes had crumbled to the ground.

“Lord Robyn,” said Bran, “He's my cousin but we've never met.”

“Yes, your Aunt was very protective of her son.”

Bran bit his lip and looked down at the markings he continued to make, running his fingers over the same set of swirls and lines again and again. It looked like nonsense to Petyr, but the boy seemed to find some meaning there as he drew the symbols out.

“Do you love my sister?”

The question came as such a non sequitur, Petyr forgot for a moment his policy of silence in uncertainty. “I'm sorry?” 

Bran's gloved index finger drew a large circle repeatedly into the snow. Round and round. He said, “My father once told me that men can do stupid things if they are in love with a woman. Like murder their wives, for example.”

Only the years of training himself to impassiveness, a quiet stillness like the surface of a lake on a windless day, prevented him from falling completely off the log. His heart began to pound like a war drum in his chest. Petyr darted a quick furtive look around them; there was no one in the Godswood, no one there to hear...or see.

The boy looked up then, his face calm, almost bored as if he were discussing something tedious. His eyes however, were deep and brown and for a horrible moment Petyr thought he was staring into the accusing eyes of Ned Stark. “Once,” Bran continued, “I overheard my father tell Robb that he would be tempted to share a bed with a woman before he is wed, when it is not proper. That love would make him want to do that too. You share a bed with Sansa sometimes.”

Petyr felt all the blood drain from his face. His mind was flipping and reeling, tumbling drunkenly through options and never quite landing solidly on its feet. He forced himself to take a long deep, breath of the frigid air, willing it to cool his temper and his instincts. Nothing good would come from him acting rashly. “You should not listen to rumours, Bran,” he said, willing the calmness into being.

Bran furrowed his brow in confusion. “I haven't heard any rumours. I have seen it with my own eyes,” he paused, then added, “Sort of.”

“Perhaps you just have a very active imagination,” said Petyr.

The boy smiled, _smiled!_ “I'm not threatening you, Lord Baelish. What would I gain from that?” said Bran, with a hint of amusement. Petyr found he very much did not like being the dangling mouse in the cat's claws. “I am trying to understand...” He looked at the ground again and traced his odd little symbols.

Petyr waited.

“When Meera and I were lost in the storm, and all we could see was white and more white, and snow and more snow, I took us to a tree like this one. I _felt_ it. I just... _knew_ it was there. And when I touched my hand to it and sought out Sansa, I saw her. Not just now, here, at Winterfell. I saw everything that has happened to her since we parted,” he said and his voice was strained. “All the horrible things people have done to her...Joffrey, Cersei, Ramsay... and _your_ face. I kept seeing your face. Again and again and again.” He paused then, pulling his furs tighter around his body. “I think it's important. I think _you're_ important.”

The frost on the log had melted and Petyr began to feel the cold wetness seep into his breeches, but he found he could not – dared not – move. Petyr felt like a stoned weight held him down in this spot, and even the gods could not shift him. He did not know what to believe, or think. In fact he had stopped thinking, spinning, whirling and could now only listen to this strange tale being unravelled by the boy before him.

He felt like a boy himself again.

“Of course,” Bran went on heedless, “I had no idea _who_ you were. And it is difficult sometimes to see people I have no...connection to.

“Then I saw you again, although this time you were a boy. And I saw my mother.” His brown eyes – the eyes of his father – looked sad. “It was a very brave thing you did, challenging my Uncle Brandon that way. And very stupid.” Bran nodded towards Petyr's chest, where the old scar lay beneath layers and layers. “Does it still hurt?”

Petyr nodded, as it seemed futile to lie. “On occasion it will ache in the cold,” he said with a wry half-grin and a glance around the snowy godswood. “But many, many people know that story, boy.”

Bran shrugged: it was of no consequence to him. “Do they know how scared you looked right before he cut you down?”

Yes, he had been scared. Terrified. He was certain in that moment that he was about to die, and the fear was only compounded by the crippling pain of his humiliation. He could still hear Catelyn screaming for her betrothed to stop, give him mercy,  _he was only a silly boy._

“Like you said, a foolish thing,” said Petyr.

Bran nodded in agreement, then lifted his eyes to the face of the hearts tree behind Petyr's head. “What about when you betrayed my Father? How many people know about that? That you held a dagger to his throat.” The boy was so calm as he spoke the words and it somehow made the accusation, the truth, more terrifying to hear aloud.

Petyr said nothing, showed nothing as Bran turned his gaze back to him. Still, like a water, he thought. He would be still.

“You did warn him – not to trust you. Maybe he should have listened,” Bran pointed out as if it were the most inane, obvious thing in the world. As if he spoke of whether he preferred butter or oils with his bread.

“If...if you believe all of this is true, then why not tell your brother?” he asked and to his horror his voice rasped with the desperation he so dearly did not wish to show.

The boy shrugged again, and returned to his markings. “I suppose...because it would only be my word against yours. And you are very good with words, Lord Baelish. I have no proof.”

“It would be easy. Your brother does not trust me,” he said, “and neither does your sister for that matter.”

Bran chuckled, his thin shoulders shaking the layers of furs. At Petyr's look of confusion, he said, “I just don't think I will ever understand what happens between men and women.”

Petyr could not help the smirk that broke out on his face, for some reason the boy's lack of interest in all these sordid betrayals put him at ease. “Believe me, you are not the only one.”

He was thinking on the ways in which he could argue his position if it came to it - Lannister blackmail, the greater good, Sansa's safety - when the boy spoke again. 

“You didn't answer my question earlier,” he said.

“Which one?”

Bran rolled his eyes at his deliberate avoidance, and Petyr was reminded very much of another Stark that found his evasions ridiculous. “Do you love her? Sansa? You keep doing stupid things for her.” he asked.

Petyr found he did not know how to answer. He opened his mouth. Then shut it. “I care for her,” he said finally.

“Will you protect her?”

“Sansa has her brother the King and an army for that. And soon a husband too. Plenty of big, strong men to keep her safe. She does not need a man like me,” he noted and disliked the way he sounded bitter.

“No! Don't you listen?” Bran asked with exasperation, and Petyr thought he saw a glimpse of the young boy he used to be. “You're important. When I asked for her, I saw _you._ I don't know _why,_ but it means something. I wish I could explain this better..." He sighed and made it simple. "I need to know that you will protect her, whatever happens.”

Petyr frowned. Bran seemed genuine in his belief that he was a man that had Sansa's best interests at heart. He thought of the letter he had nearly sent – could _still_ send – and he wondered what it meant that the boy did not know the truth of it, when he knew the truth of everything else. 

“I...will try,” he said and was not even sure himself it was a lie.

Bran nodded satisfied, and they were silent for a long time. Petyr heard a raven _quork_ in the distance and a faint air stirred the blood red leaves over his head. He thought of the letter again, then looked at this boy that could see right through him with panic and quickly banished the image from his mind like a superstitious fool. He thought of wargs, and greenseers and giants - all the other things he had not thought of in a very long time.

“Why did you come out here to speak to me? Really,” Bran asked, breaking the stillness.

The boy seemed to be able to sniff out lies like a hound on a blood trail, so Petyr spoke the truth, “To see whether you would be interested in claiming your right to this castle, it's lands. The North. You are Ned Stark's only surviving true born heir.”

“I will not challenge Jon," he said. "He deserves to be Lord of Winterfell. More, even.”

Petyr wasn't sure what to say to that so he clarified, “The King in the North is Ned Stark's bastard. A good man and a noble warrior, to be sure, but a bastard none-the-less.”

Bran smiled at his words but said nothing to whatever it was he found so amusing. Petyr once again found himself disliking the notion of being the one who did not hold all the information. It reminded him of Varys and his smug, bald little face whenever they butted wits and the eunuch would drop a tidbit, a little tasty hint, that there was something he did not know. 

“What will you do?” he asked, trying to shake the thought of the spider and his webs from his mind.

“As soon as my saddle is finished, Meera and I will head South, to find her Father,” he said. The girl had suffered some frostbite but the Wildling healers had managed to save her life. Petyr had only caught a glimpse of the girl once in the past week, a slight thing with a big, bright eyes that spoke of grief and desperation. He wondered how many children would been broken before the end of this war.

“Why would you need to speak to Howland Reed?” Petyr asked, his curiosity genuine. That the boy would risk another jaunt out into the wild North when the weather could turn back fierce at any moment, surprised him, especially as his friend had come so close to death.

Bran touched his hand to a group of shapes in the frozen ground. From this angle it looked like a crude three-lined spiral. "Proof” he said.

~~~

It was hours after his conversation with Bran in the Godswood and Petyr sat huddled up by the fire in his rooms, yet he could not get warm. The cold seemed deeper than his skin, than his bones. The boy's insights had created a great frozen schism his mind shattered into a thousand shards of ice. Every rational explanation, every logical path seemed blocked to him. The world suddenly did not seem to fit inside his head any more.

He wanted to run, far, far away from the boy, that tree, this cursed castle. 

Gods, he hated the North.

The light tapping at the door only signalled the beginning of fresh pain.

He had not expected to see Sansa so soon after her fury at his callousness the night her brother had been rescued from the snows. She had avoided him this past week, and he left her to her sulking. Let her revert to being a silly little girl. Let her rile herself up in moral indignation. He had thought her better than that now.

Sansa glided in, her hair twisted up, her face pale and hard. He refused to rise.

“I am not in the mood for whatever lecture you wish to give me,” he said and turned back to the fire.

“I need to talk to you.”

“I do not want to talk to you,” he said. “So unless you have come to wrap those pretty lips around my cock then I suggest you leave.”

He heard her huff but she did not move. “I leave tomorrow. For White Harbour,” she said tonelessly.

Yes, he had seen the preparations in the courtyard, the sleds and the dogs, piles of trunks full of the Lady's belongings. The restless guard that would accompany her, jostling and joking as they ate their final supper at Winterfell, eager to get on the road and move South to warmer climes. Yes he had seen. And he had ignored the sharp, dull ache that came with seeing.

“Safe travels, My Lady” he grunted. He was the one being petulant now he knew, but the hard day had drawn out the childish part of him that wanted to kick and scream and break things.

“There is something...you need to know. Before I go,” her voice wavered. He stared stubbornly into the flames. “Petyr...please...”

He turned then, because how could he not when she said his name so softly, so sadly.

She looked ill, he thought, and then he realised she was scared. He had not saved her, like she thought he would. Perhaps she had thought he would be the gallant knight in the end, swooping in at the last moment. She knew, the stupid girl, he had told her that he could not stop this, not the way she wanted. He could not be her knight. He was no ones knight.

A fury, an ugly jagged rage swept through him like wildfire and he had no idea whether it was an anger at her, and her foolish, ridiculous hope, or if it was at himself. _Protect her,_ her brother had said like it was something he was capable of. The only person he was any use in protecting was himself.

He was across the room in seconds, his hands on her slim shoulders and he could see from her wince that his grip was too tight.

“What do you _want_ from me?” he ground out between gritted teeth. Only this woman could make him feel this desperate, and hateful and remorseful all the same time. He wanted to choke the life from her. He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to throw her to the lions and watch them tear her apart. “You _know_ what you need to do. I cannot help you if you refuse to help yourself. Wed him, fuck him, bear his child then smother him in his sleep. Surely I've taught you enough whores tricks by now?”

She gasped, and how he loathed the tears that filled her eyes. What had happened to the strong, hard woman that had taken him apart? Had she disappeared on her brother's miraculous return to Winterfell? Why did she now hope that this world would be better than what she had seen of it?

There it was, that dirty word again: _hope._

"I won't kill him," she said. "I won't do it."

“You won't?” he smirked. "What if he is a cruel man?"

"Crueler than you?" She meant it to sting but his smirk only grew. “I _won't_ ,” she growled.

“Then enjoy being married to a cripple for the rest of your days," he said, his face inches from hers, "because no one else will save you.” 

Then he dragged her to him and their mouths crashed together. Her hands came up and tugged harshly at his hair. She kissed him back and he could feel how much she loathed him through as she bit his lips, his tongue.

She ripped his clothes from him, he from her, and they came back together again, skin to skin, in a tangle of limbs.

They coupled with a fury, her nails raked red lines into his soft skin as he entered her, her teeth marking and bruising, tearing at his body like a half-starved wolf. Her eyes blazed as she drew her territorial pain from him, and he bucked and groaned underneath her like dying prey. 

She shuddered and screamed as she came, the carnal noise so loud anyone in the Keep would hear, and he found he just _did not care_. Let them hear. Let them take his head. She was leaving and he did not save her.

Sansa collapsed like a rag doll on his chest, still shaking and breathing hard. He moaned as he slid out of her. 

He felt warm again. 

“You wanted to tell me something?” he asked, stroking circles on her back.

Sansa looked at him and he watched as her blue eyes hardened with disgust, with fear, with hate. 

Without a word, before he could fix this broken thing, she fled, leaving him still panting and sticky with their sweat and spendings.

In the morning she would be gone. And he would send his letter. Perhaps they would write songs about the Lord Littlefinger, the cruel little man, who for a kingdom, sent his Lady love's head as a present to a Mad Queen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I enjoyed writing this. Immensely. 
> 
> Please, let me know your thoughts. And a massive thank you to everyone who has welcomed me here and over on tumblr, which I am finding to be both great fun and a massive, time-sucking void that I can fall into for hours.


	9. Entropy

 

A horn woke him in the early hours; the long, droning sound that signalled a rider approaching.

Petyr turned over and went back to sleep.

_He dreamt of feral men, with madness in their eyes. He dreamt of a boy who would be a hero, but then drowned beneath the thunderous waves of a blue-green sea. The skies shifted to and fro, back and forth, between falling white snow and crumbled, smouldering ash. A woman cried out in agony and a pool of deep, red blood began to spread towards him, covering his shoes and soaking into his cloak. The air smelled of rusty iron and sulphur. 'What a terrible waste', he thought as all that blood drenched his favourite doublet._

A heavy pounding on the door matched the throbbing in his head.

Petyr sat up and grasped blindly for his robe. “Come,” he called, and winced as his bare feet hit the cool floor. The sky was grey, the sun not yet up.

The King's steward flew into the room, panting as if he had run all the way from King's Landing. He would have to have words with the boy about discretion. It would not do for the wrong person to see the idiot child flying across the courtyard and up to these chambers like his breeches were on fire. Questions would be asked.

“What is it?” Petyr snapped.

“We've just had word from Highgarden m'lord,” he gasped, red in the face, “The castle is under siege. Lord Tyrell requests the King march South at once.”

~~~

It was chaos. Complete, wonderful chaos.

Petyr tried to slide himself into his place without disturbing the din. Snow was the only man sat, the others were all at some point of tightly wound frustration, all fists and narrowed eyes. The young king seemed lost in thought, running his fingers along the black hair of his beard.

The rider had come from Moat Cailin; three days of pressing his mount to its limits and the poor thing had died at the castle gates. He brought word from Lord Tyrell via raven, a scrap of parchment written in such haste it was hard to make out the scrawl. The seal too had been rushed, the flower of Highgarden's petals grotesquely smeared in green wax.

Lord Royce had worked himself into a great lather, his jowly face quivered. “We must ride South at once, Your Grace. If we wait too long we lose the element of surprise,” he yelled, and Petyr winced at the unnecessary volume.

Tormund matched him with a growl. “And what about the Wall? There we are facing an enemy far greater than these Ironborn!”

A large map of Westeros, painted onto a roll of hide, had been unfurled on the table. Stones taken from the moors outside these walls represented armies. Whole troops on small rocks the size of a man's thumb. The crude carvings reminded Petyr of the strange shapes Bran Stark seemed so bent on drawing in the snow.

“We have sent plenty of men to the Wall. Two thousand already,” Royce reminded them.

“The Night's Watch were depleted, they needed our support,” Davos noted, his voice not shouting but still heard. His shortened fist rested clenched by the waters of Storm's End.

The Lord of the Vale countered, “Only because those barbarians attacked our realm in the first place.”

“We were fleeing for our lives!” Tormund yelled, his face turning mottled red, spittle flying. “The White Walkers do not care if a man is Free Folk or a soft, southern Lord. You will die all the same.”

“Ghost stories again! I don't know who is more fanciful; your wild tales of the armies of dead men, or _that_ _boy,”_ Royce muttered.

Davos' face was grave as he spoke to Royce, “My Lord, I mean no disrespect, but there is a lot more in this world than just men. I have seen that with my own eyes.”

The old man huffed, and threw his arms about as he looked at the map. He was a seasoned warrior, a respected swordsman of huge talents. Bronze Yohn had won many a battle and led thousands of men to war. And here he was now in a small room in the cold North, being ridiculed for talking sound strategy, in the face of fanciful stories from the Wildlings he had been forced to fight beside. Petyr almost felt sorry for him.

Almost.

“Why not send the Wildlings?” Royce suggested, “It is _their_ land, let them defend it.” He made the mistake of pointing an accusatory finger at Tormund.

The bigger man growled through his red beard, “You would send women and children to fight your battles?”

“Better them than us, I say,” Royce crowed, trying to save face.

Tormund lunged forward and brought his face within an inch of Royce. The older man did not flinch, standing his ground. “I will rip your tongue from your mouth, Lord from the Vale, don't think your shiny armour will protect you.”

Royce replied through gritted teeth, “I would expect nothing less from a barbarian.”

“Tormund, stand down,” Snow said firmly, speaking for the first time since Petyr had entered the room. The King rose and leant forward on the table, eyes lowered towards Dorne. “The Free Folk are under my protection. They stay where they are.”

Both men paused, reluctant, but followed their King's order and backed away. Petyr was slightly disappointed that it had not come to blows.

“Then we should keep a small garrison here and march South,” Royce said, still standing, still belligerent, “The Iron born are reavers and rapists. They will be poorly prepared for a drawn out siege, and will know little to nothing of that sort of warfare.”

It was a valid point.

Davos sighed and shook his head. “Who's to say they haven't overrun the castle already?” he said, “We've only got this slip of paper to go on and it looks to me that whoever wrote it was shitting his pants at the time.”

“We could send a raven; without a seal,” Snow suggested, but it was clear now that he was only thinking out loud.

“The weather is clear enough,” Royce agreed.

Petyr spoke, “Too risky,” he said. “If Euron Greyjoy has the castle, he has the Maester. We would not know a real missive from a false one. He could easily lure us into an ambush.”

Royce scoffed, “I think you are giving the man far too much credit.”

“They could be working with Lannister soldiers, seasoned generals,” Petyr pointed out. “We must assume they are as knowledgeable as we in the art of war. Better to overestimate your enemy than underestimate them.”

“The men here,” Tormund pointed to the map to the Tully and Stark sigils at The Twins, “we could send some of them South to scout the area.”

Snow looked severe. “I could be sending dozens of men to their deaths.”

“This is war. People will die no matter what we do,” said Davos solemnly. “They might be able to provide us with valuable information.”

"And if they report that Highgarden is still under siege?" Petyr asked.

"We go South," Royce said as if it were obvious.

Snow sighed, a huge, frustrated breath that rolled through his shoulders. His frustration was palpable as he spoke, “If we march South, I make the same mistake as Robb – leaving the North without enough men. If we stay here... eventually the Ironborn will roll inland from both coasts, and the Lannisters will march up the neck.” He shook his head and pointed at the marker on King's Landing, a jagged little flake of slate with what was surely meant to be a lion carved into the stone, but looked more like a pup with cross-eyes. “What is happening here? Do we know how many men Cersei has?”

The men all looked at each other.

“No,” the Onion Knight said, “We only know that they are severely diminished.”

“Years of war will do that to an army,” Petyr remarked. “The Lannister host is a fraction of what it once was, and there is no more gold coming from those mines. Not to mention the crown is heavily in debt with the Iron bank.”

Snow looked at him with a question, so he elaborated.

“I _was_ the Master of Coin,” Petyr said, somewhat smugly. “But considering what we have heard of Cersei's state of mind, I doubt she will be making sound financial decisions.”

Davos shook his head, “I don't know about you, but I'm not keen on the idea of provoking that woman. I've seen what wildfire is capable of first hand, and trust me, it isn't pretty.”

Snow grimaced and gestured his hand at the map, dismissive. “It doesn't matter: this news is likely weeks old,” he said. “Who knows what has happened since that raven flew to Moat Cailin...”

"We still have reinforcements there," Petyr reminded, "If the Lannisters march from Casterly Rock, those men could be sent to support the soldiers at the Twins."

Royce frowned, and leaned over the map, his seasoned general's mind at work. "Lord Baelish is right," he said, and Petyr could not prevent the eyebrow that rose at Royce's unfamiliar support. The man would normally argue a thing was black if Petyr had named it white. "Our strongest defensive position _is_ The Twins, as long as we maintain a line of retreat to Moat Cailin." He drew his finger along the path North."The castle may be derelict but it is natural choke point if we are overwhelmed further South. If we move quickly we can build better fortification."

Snow looked at the changes Royce had made and chewed his lip. "What's to stop the Lannisters marching up the King's Road and cutting us off in the east?" he asked, pointing to the route up to The Neck.

Royce picked up the two Vale stones at Winterfell - both pale greyish-white with painted blue Falcons - and placed them at the confluence of the Red, Blue and Green Fork rivers, on the north east bank of the great Trident. "Hold here," he said, "with the Knights of the Vale. If the weakened Lannister army are foolish enough to try to meet us in an open field, it would take only days for support infantry to march from the Bloody Gate and take them from the east. My men know that land better than any lion."

"And leave Winterfell almost defenseless," Davos pointed out.

 “Your Grace,” said Royce, “We agreed an alliance with Lord Tyrell. We _cannot_ go back on our word: it would be dishonourable.” He looked at the map and pointed to the dozens of pebbles with a painted krakens that littered Blackwater Bay and the west coast. “Without his fleet of ships we will be impotent against the Ironborn.”

Davos gestured to the same little rocks with his whole hand. “Euron Greyjoy will have attacked from the sea. Who's to say there's even a fleet of ships left?”

“Ask the warg boy,” Tormund said gruffly, with thinning patience. “He could fly a bird south and see.”

Snow frowned, but did not dismiss the thought. In fact he seemed to be taking the suggestion at face value. Petyr met the Onion Knight's eyes across the table and he watched the worry settle there, heavily.

“Ridiculous.” Lord Royce muttered but said nothing else.

“My lord,” Davos said, “Trusting in these dark forces-”

Snow cut him off. “My little brother is _not_ Melisandre. She did unforgivable things to serve her god, I know,” he said trying to reassure his Hand but there was a bitterness there and Petyr wondered whether Jon Snow resented the fact that he had supposedly been brought back from death at the Red Woman's hands. With her strange God's powers. It was a terrible debt after all, and Northern men always seemed to put great stock in these things. "I can't even begin to understand her powers, the things she could do...but Bran is just a boy.”

“I've never met a boy like him,” said Davos darkly.

Lord Royce looked irritated and tried to draw focus back to the map on the table. “Your Grace! I think a sound military strategy would be better than relying on the gibbering of some delusional child.” 

Jon Snow ignored him. The King was deep in thought, playing with a small Iron born pebble on the South coast near Oldtown. “Call the banners,” he said with finality. “I want a defensive force here-” he pointed to the east coast to White Harbour, “and here-” he moved markers to Barrowtown in the south west and the Stony Shore. “More men on the west. The rest I want here at Winterfell," he looked at Royce, "ready to march South.”

The older man nodded, jaws clenched and a seedling of respect stirred between the two men. It had been inevitable really - both loyal, honourable to a fault and strong-willed when it came to their men. Petyr fought the urge to curl his lip.

Snow turned to the steward and dictated his orders, “Send word to our forces at the Twins; they are to send a dozen of their best scouts to Highgarden - no sigils or banners, in case they are caught. Tell them to prepare to fortify their position. I want every man at Moat Cailin to do the same and hold until I send word.” The steward nodded, noting down the words as fast as he was able. Snow frowned at the map again, with it's scattered pattern of strategy laid out in tiny painted, pieces of northern land. He said with finality, “The men at the wall stay where they are.” 

Then he turned to his men around the table. “Our best defence and advantage right now is the Winter. We are better prepared than any Lannister or Ironborn to fight in the snows. We lost too many north men the last time we marched south. We will wait on word from the scouts. We hold here until then.” He looked over at Davos. “Wake Bran and get him dressed. Tell him I will see him in the Godswood in an hour. The rest of you can decide as you like if you come.”

Snow left, his steward scurrying behind him still scribbling frantically.

Petyr did not move as the other men left the solar. He surveyed the map, the markers of great houses littered across the hide. He looked at the Lannister territory that stretched from King's Landing to Highgarden, right across the Riverlands. _His_ castle, Harrenhal, sat square in the middle of these two warring realms, the lands around he knew had been decimated by the war of the five Kings. Whole villages had been burned to the ground.

There was nothing left fit for any man to rule.

The alliance was falling apart, and Highgarden might not be long for this world. The King in the North prepared to go to war after months of brooding confinement but even a simple man, with little knowledge of warfare could see that the north was too vast to hold with so few men. There was an enemy at every gate, too many fronts to defend even with the cold that would slow the incoming armies of the South. He cast his gaze briefly at Dorne, and resented their seclusion and their silence. They could have been a powerful ally. 

But to him it was obvious, despite the tight-jawed resolve of these blooded warriors. Pigheaded determination was all well and good, but in the end wars were not won through sheer force of will. Perhaps if they were then he might be kneeling to Stannis. No, he needed to solidify a favourable position with the Lannisters, or he could soon find his own head rolling when the Ironborn sailed North.

_~~~_

The rookery was a stinking mess of bird shit and damp and the King's steward looked harassed as he entered, wrestling with a raven the size of a small cat. A mess of parchment lay on the floor and the birds _quorked_ in mocking calls, flapping their black feathers and stirring dust into the air. Petyr wrinkled his nose: Winterfell was sorely lacking a Maester.

“Another letter from the King,” Petyr said with deliberate nonchalence and handed the rolled parchment to the boy. He nodded dutifully.

“Where to, My Lord?”

“King's Landing.”

If the lad was surprised he said nothing, and Petyr was happy he had chosen one loyal enough to follow orders without questions. He watched as the missive was tied to the raven's leg and the bird was released to the skies.

He felt a large pressure lift from his chest, the tight iron band released. This was the first step to securing his own future in the wars to come, carving out an escape route with his own hands piece by piece. His way out of this frozen hell was flying away, soaring south.

His words to Cersei were deliberately vague, committing to nothing he might not be able to deliver, but enough to pique her bloodthirsty interests. He promised the North but not now. He promised a head, but not when or how or where. After all, there must be some bargaining to be had if he wanted to remain Lord of Harrenhal, and he hoped to gain other titles besides. There were many options left to him, and this new leverage eased the tension that had built in him these past few months. He felt all at once his old self as he laid his careful, tentative groundwork.

Petyr thought of Sansa and their ferocious coupling the night before. Her anger had puzzled him, so too did the way her mood had shifted so extremely since the return of her little brother. Bran Stark was a large and invading presence in the castle despite his stature, forcing Sansa back into the role of girl sister, mother. Bran _weakened_ her.

And as innocent as the lad played with his unnerving truths that he tossed to the ground at Petyr's feet like bones picked clean, there _must_ still be an agenda. He was naive, but a crafty young man and coy with his knowledge. Bran wanted his sister kept safe, and was prepared to do so by manipulating a man three times his age and with ten times the experience in cunning. He had the advantage of supposed omniscience that would put even Varys on the back foot. But he was human, fallible, like any other. 

Even a boy like Bran, with the insight of the gods, still wanted something and so could still be moved.

~~~

Petyr had not seen Sansa all morning. He had intended to avoid her leaving party and hide in his rooms but now the sun was up and the sleds had been unpacked at the news from the south. Surely she would be pleased, but perhaps she did not know.

He sought her out and was dismayed to find Brienne guarding her rooms like a clunking, miserable statue. Her face twisted into extreme distaste as she saw him approach.

“The Lady Sansa is not receiving visitors this morning,” she said, mouth set in a stern line.

He raised a brow and asked, “Any visitors, or just this particular one?” 

“She is feeling unwell. She does not wish to see you.”

“Well, which is it?” 

Brienne looked nonplussed. “Both.”

Petyr smirked, “Even if I come with good news?”

“Even if you come with an army,” Brienne threatened, baring her teeth.

He pursed his lips and considered the sword at the women’s hip. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to look sincere. “Whatever you may think, my Lady, I only have Sansa’s best interests at heart.”

“You are too familiar, Lord Baelish,” she warned with her hand on that golden Lannister hilt, and he certainly could not deny the woman the truth of that statement.

The door opened and he could only see a glimpse of red hair and dark furs behind Brienne's great bulk. “Let him in,” Sansa said quietly.

He tried his very, very best not to look smug as he slipped past Brienne and into the room. It was bare, all her little trinkets and dresses packed away pointlessly now.

“I thought you were feeling ill? Your monstrous handmaiden tried to turn me away.” She glared at him but said nothing. “Ah,” he realised, “You were hoping to delay the trip.”

“Something like that...” she said absently. “You said there was news?”

“Yes, it appears fate has intervened in your favour,” he smirked, “Highgarden is under attack by the Ironborn. Who knows, if you're lucky, your betrothed may already be eviscerated.”

He watched her reaction closely. There was a relief, certainly but also a quickening of panic, a hitch of her breath as she ran through the implications.

“Will Jon be marching South?” she asked.

“He has called the banners, but the plan is to hold the position until we know more. It would be futile marching to rescue a razed castle,” he remarked.

She nodded slowly, distracted by her thoughts. After a moment she seemed to remember he was still standing there.

“Get out,” she said.

He obliged the lady.

_~~~_

 

They gathered in the Godswood and Petyr felt equal parts cold, fearful and ridiculous.

Royce had opted to stay in the castle, muttering at the folly of Northerners and their superstitions choosing instead to think on more tactics for the coming war. Sansa was still sequestered in her rooms, and he wondered what secrets she thought she kept up there with the Lady Brienne. He squashed the thought that almost voiced concern.

“I don't know if I can,” Bran was saying to Snow. The boy was wrapped up in furs and propped beneath the hearts tree. “It is easy to see family, people I care for. It just..takes me. I've never tried to look for a stranger before.”

Tormund piped up with a suggestion, “Orell used to say that a little ale would help him warg.”

“Orell?” Bran asked.

“He was a skinchanger, like you. He could see through the eyes of his eagle and fly ahead of the Free Folk to look for enemies,” the Wildling replied, a proud fondness settling on his face.

“A useful man to have around,” said Davos.

Snow looked a little sheepish then. “I killed him,” he said.

Tormund grinned and clapped a large hand on Snow's shoulder. “I don't mind,” he said. “He was a cunt.”

Bran was not listening, staring at the tree. “I lost my wolf,” he said quietly, “Summer died protecting me...I'm not sure I can see through the eyes of a bird.”

Snow crouched and placed strong, supportive hands on his brother's shoulders. “Just try,” he said. “That's all I ask.”

Tormund fished a drinking pouch from underneath his furs, and offered it to Bran. The boy refused politely with a shake of his head and the Wilding shrugged and took a big swing himself.

“Take your time,” Snow urged and retreated back to the odd semi-circle they made, the four of them around the tree surrounding the boy.

Petyr watched again as Bran placed his hands upon the tree, his finger splayed wide in leather gloves. It was reverent, almost holy. Then his head fell back, a snap so harsh the bones must have crunched. His body went into spasm. Foamish spittle flowed from his mouth in rivulets. Eyes rolled into whites and the shaking was enough to disturb the leaves on the lower branches. The ground trembled, like a giant waking from a great slumber.

Davos drew in a harsh breath and moved to pull the lad from the tree but Jon's firm arm stopped him. “No,” he said, “Don't touch him.”

Petyr did not know what would happen if a man were to touch the convulsing cripple boy that grasped at the gaping mouth of the tree, his hands coated in red, sticky sap as if he had plunged them inside an open wound. He held his breath and glanced at the men around him, taking in the wide eyes, the sharp puffs of breath condensing in the cold air. Even the Wildling seemed disturbed.

Suddenly Bran was launched back a full bodies length and Jon Snow darted to catch him, cradling his young brother in his arms like a babe. The boy was panting fast and shallow, his eyes now back to their normal shade of brown, his face bloodless. Petyr realised that he was panting too.

“What is it, Bran? What did you see?” Snow asked, brows drawn together in concern.

“Dead...” Bran whispered through white lips, “Dead....they're all dead, or dying or worse.”

The boy continued to gasp, and the tips of Petyr's fingers had gone numb, but not from the cold. “Lord Tyrell?” he asked.

"What did you see?" Snow asked again, gripping the boy's face that seemed to roll and rile and still stay that startling shade of white.

“The man with a flower sigil, crippled like me," Bran panted, finding some steadfastness in his brother's firm grip, "He's dead....all dead. Hundreds of knights, soldiers, servants, the Maester who tried to send for help before they strangled him with his own chain. The women they kept, to cook the food, to keep the castle, to....” Bran trailed off, his lips parted and he began to cry, slow, fat tears down his pale cheeks. “The Ironborn King – Euron, I saw him laughing as his men slaughtered and raped. They have the castle -and he has a man - like me, with green eyes. Black hair, and a wine stain mark. He saw me...I am sure he saw me. He looked right at me.” He sat up then, in Snow's arms, his hands grasping frantically at his brother's furs. “Do not go South, Highgarden has fallen. If you march south, the war will be lost."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit Plotty McPlotface so took some time to map out. And by map out, I mean I literally had to draw a map of Westeros to figure out what the hell was gong on.
> 
> Side note: I like to write Davos' lines by acting them out in a PROPA GEORDIE ACCENT (for those of you who may not know [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OjYrPXCRto) is a pretty good representation - *NSFW*)


	10. The Whore's Gambit

He had been called many things in his time, most of them unkind. He had played many roles, most unsavoury. It was all to further the cause, to climb the ladder, to reach his goals. Master of Coin. King's Advisor. Brothel Keeper. Littlefinger.

He had often styled himself as a business man, an entrepreneur with a shrewd eye. He saw the world through the lens of his investments: the decisions that would make him rich, taking the risks that most men wouldn't, reaping the rewards from his distasteful establishments, and all the while plundering the crown's coffers and ensuring its inevitable collapse.

 _Sex_ was a business. The oldest business, in fact. It wasn't hard to figure out why. Pleasure was a powerful motivator, an urge that most could not ignore, an instinctual need for that warmth, that release. Most men were weak, blind, when it came to the mindless creature between their legs.

He had often noted that those of nobility would try to use his objectionable incomes to belittle him, to lower his status and deride him. Those same men would be on their backs in his establishments only hours later, calling to the Seven, with a whore wrapped like a Kracken around his cock. Those girls, like gems or gold, were truly valuable assets and by far his hardest working investments. They served several of his purposes at once: to spread their legs and make him money and to be his eyes, ears and his powers of persuasion.

Of course, occasionally, one of them would get ideas above her station. And the same as a whore who could not fuck, a whore who thought she could outsmart him was not a sound investment. 

Sometimes those women thought they could plot their way out of his clutches. Many had attempted to seduce him, using the tricks _he_ had taught. Some attempted to withhold secrets they had sucked out of his enemies to bargain for jewels, for riches, for freedom.

A common ploy for those that were better at thinking long-term, had been to ensnare a rich client with their wiles, convince the man to pay for exclusivity, then forget their moon tea and fall pregnant, thinking that their benefactor would swoop in and save them.

And the gallant imbeciles that they were, those men would be tempted to fall to the rescue of the smugly triumphant whore

It would be then that Littlefinger would step in to invite the man - or Lord or Septon - to his private solar. He would offer Arbor wines, rich fruits and plush comfort. Then he would make them an offer: claim the bastard and take the girl off his hands, or pay a one-time fee (a large but fair amount considering the longer term cost of a child and a mistress) and Littlefinger would have the problem resolved permanently.

It never took them long to decide which was the better deal.

The exception to this had been that bastard of Robert Baratheon's. It would have been ill-advised to attempt to barter with the King and dangling the hint of future blackmail tantamount to a death sentence. Petyr had ensured the child and her mother were cared for and found the bloated oaf grateful, oddly fond of his illegitimate daughter.

Only very rarely would he have to take more drastic measures when a girl began to get illusions of grandeur. Or if they became a danger to his own machinations. He thought no more of those women that he did of a worn pair of boots, or a broken quill. They had served their purpose, and now he no longer had use of them. Even Ros - a rare women who had captured his interest with her fire and competent spark - had compounded his belief that savvy whores were never to be trusted.

But his whores, his brothels, his investments, were now all long gone. Torn down. So, who was he now? He advised a new King that he most likely planned to betray. He lay with his sister, who despised him. He listened to the youngest Stark with the power to see across a thousand leagues, and believed those visions that he would once have dismissed as absurd.

Who was he now?

He was Littlefinger, liar, deceiver. Winner of this great game.

~~~

“How is your brother, my Lord?” Petyr asked as Jon Snow entered his solar, shaking the snow from his furred cloak. Davos perched against the large table, his back to the large map of the Seven Kingdoms.

“Resting,” Snow said as he hung his pelts over the back of his chair to dry.“The - whatever that thing is that he does - took it out of him. Meera is with him.”

“Then it appears we need to discuss a new strategy. Now we have lost our only ally in the south,” Petyr said.

“I thought you were with Royce; this is all superstitious Northern bollocks,” Davos pointed out.

He shrugged and pursed his lips, conceding the older man's point. “Let's just say, Brandon Stark has made some convincing arguments..."

Snow nodded absently. “He mentioned that you spoke. He didn't say what about, but...” he trailed off and seemed to dislike the taste of his next words in his mouth, “...he wants me to listen to what you have to say.”

Petyr could not help the rise of his brows, and Snow smiled at his shock. “I was just as surprised as you. But I trust my brother.”

“You might trust your brother, my Lord, but just as any of us, he is still capable of being wrong,” Davos said.

The King nodded and pushed his dark curls back from his face. He looked as worn down as Petyr felt. “What choice do I have?” he said, more to himself, to the flames dwindling in the hearth.

 He watched as Snow started to descend into one of his black, brooding piques. Petyr had never known the man before, only the scandal of his existence as the bastard of the noble Eddard Stark. He wondered how much of that stigma, the exclusion of wrong birth, had shaped him. He wondered how much was left of the man that had supposedly died at Castle Black. It must be an odd thing, to be able to look your murderer in the eye and hang him.

Petyr considered the room: just the three of them, a perfect design for secrets and plotting. Two men could always turn on one and other with little consequence, three was complicity. He decided to take a risk. “I may have a suggestion,” he offered.

Snow looked up from the fire and spoke, “Let me guess: I won't like it?”

Petyr nodded, letting his small grimace concede that Snow was likely right. He took a breath before he offered his proposal. Davos eyed him with suspicion. “Send an envoy to negotiate terms with Cersei Lannister,” he said. “A proposal to unite against a common enemy.”

“Are you mad?” Davos asked, his expression somewhere half way between amusement and incredulity. “That women murdered hundreds of innocent people to get her throne! She's a tyrant.”

Petyr nodded, unable to deny a single point the man made but he noticed that he had Snow's attention.

“We stand a much better chance of surviving-” he still struggled to bring the concept into words, “-what is coming.”

Davos stood from his perch on the table. “And what's to stop her from slaughtering any men we send to King's Landing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Petyr admitted. “But Cersei's weakness has always been her lack of foresight, it will be her downfall. She is also hugely distrustful, she believes the worst of everyone.”

“How does this help us?” Snow asked.

Petyr smiled. “We play to her expectations,” he said and gestured to himself. “Send me. She will grant me an audience because she cannot afford to lose the information I hold. Cersei expects that I shall live up to my reputation. ”

“You mean your reputation as a self-serving backstabber?” Davos noted with an edge, and Snow shot him a quelling look.

“Yes,” he said, refusing to give a reaction, “it can sometimes be useful.”

“Fine,” the King mused, “but how will you convince her to side with us – with a traitor - against the White Walkers?”

“By assuring her that as soon as the war in the North is won and the kingdom secured, I will deliver what she has asked for,” he remarked.

Snow frowned. “Which is?”

“Sansa Stark.”

“No.” The King's voice was quiet, but held the firm deadly threat of a Valyrian steel sword.

Petyr willed his resolve, and kept his gaze level with Snow. He had come this far. “She believes Sansa murdered her son. Her need for vengeance will blind her.”

Snow stood with a rolling force that sent several parchments on his desk fluttering to the floor. “You are NOT handing my sister over to Cersei Lannister!”

Davos moved to a ready stance, perhaps to defend his King, perhaps to subdue him, his stubbled jaw clenching tight.

“I don't plan to hand her over,” Petyr said, raising his hands in attempt to placate the incensed man. Excitement rushed through his veins, the thrilling pounding of his blood forced him on. “But Cersei will need to see a show of good faith – let me take Sansa with me when I sail south. We will stop at Gulltown and I will have her escorted to the Vale. Not only is it the safest place in the Seven Kingdoms, but as Lord Protector it is under my control.”

“Why not just keep her at Winterfell?” Davos asked, his bushy brows together.

"Cersei would never believe that the noble Jon Snow would give up his precious sister. It needs to look as though I have somehow wrested her from your protection,” he explained, hands still held in a gesture of surrender. Snow's nostrils were still flared like a bull ready to charge, but the red rage had left his eyes.

Davos continued to ask the questions for his King. “And what's to stop you actually just handing the girl over and siding with Cersei?”

Petyr said nothing for a moment, then lowered his hands and turned to the Onion Knight. “Given a choice between a Kingdom ruled by an unstable Queen with a propensity for burning her enemies, and a King who rules with fairness and honour, who would you support?" Petyr turned back to Snow and spoke calmly, “It will put me in an extremely favourable position, and after we defeat our common enemy, I will be able to dismantle her reign from the inside.”

“You would be able to do that?” Snow asked, the anger leaving as swiftly as it came. The man was young, a new leader, but he was not a fool. He had the nose of a wolf for a tactical advantage.

“Why not?” he smirked, “I've done it before.”

There was a period of shedding silence as Jon Snow took his measure, so much like that first day they had spoken one on one. Petyr felt as though he were being pulled and weighed by an impossible standard of scrutiny. He fought his urge to look away. Davos still hovered in the space between them, hand not on his sword, but near enough. He wondered for a second whether the knight had meant to defend the unarmed man from his enraged King and not the other way around.

“Davos, give us the room,” Snow said, his Stark eyes never leaving Petyr's face.

The older man only frowned and nodded his head. As he passed Petyr he clapped a hand on his shoulder and spoke, “You're a sneaky bastard, Baelish. I hope to the gods you are truly on our side.”

Snow waited until he left, then turned and leaned over the fire, staring into the flames. “I am putting a huge amount of faith in you, Lord Baelish,” he said.

“It is a startling about-turn,” Petyr said and could not help the wry smirk that crossed his face.

“Bran says that it won't be long now before the Wall falls and the White Walkers come South,” Snow said, his eyes hard. “I can't explain the fear I felt that day at Hardhome. That-” he cut off suddenly, brows drawing together, a breath rattling through him, “That is what death looks like. And it is heading this way.” There was a long moment where Petyr thought that perhaps the man had forgotten he was there, so deep was he in his own gruesome memories. Then he turned and met Petyr's eyes again, “I want Sansa as far away from this place as possible. Bran trusts that you will keep her safe, and I trust him.”

Trust: what a foolish, meaningless sentiment, he thought. How glad he was not to be as beholden to _trust_ as the rest of them.

Snow was waiting for a response, some swearing of fealty, so he nodded trying to make it look like all those quick masculine jerks of resolution he had seen from Knights and Lords and proud men at the command of the King. Petyr was reminded once again of Ned Stark, that paragon of honour, and he stood a little straighter thinking of how far he had come in undermining his son in the man's own home.

“Will you tell her?” Snow asked. It was not a shirking of responsibility, but an honest seeking of his opinion.

“That is up to you,” he said, “I feel it may be better for her to remain ignorant.”

Snow smiled again. “Might be difficult, she's a lot more shrewd than I remember,” he said.

Petyr nodded, letting his own smile widen. “She is a...formidable woman.”

The King chewed his lip, and Petyr was reminded once again how young the man was, truly. “You will help her, once all this is done?” he asked, an uncomfortable waver in his eyes. “Help her lead?”

It was then that he realised that Jon Snow did not expect to survive the coming conflict, he was a man prepared to lay down his life for this war, for his people, for some amorphous concept of what must be done for the greater good. Because what was coming was so terrible and unknown that the only realistic expectation was death.

The thought terrified him, tore him.

All he could do was duck his head like all the good soldiers he had seen.

~~~

The bath was a balm to his aching limbs. The heat soothed him, and Petyr finally let his head fall back and his eyes close.

This now was a test of his resolve, of his ability to flip the coin and have it land on its edge. It was almost a year now to the day that he had travelled south to King's Landing to treat with Cersei; a year since he handed a trusting Sansa Stark to the Boltons and turned his back. So much had changed in that time, and perhaps he had changed as well. He could never remember feeling this tired or this weary. The rush he used to feel, surging through his veins when his plans came to fruition was an addiction a younger version of him had chased like some men whored and drank and gambled.

He was in the best possible place now, able to topple the coin either way, and he would still come out on top. It was perfect, he should be euphoric. These were the moments that Littlefinger lived for. So, why did he feel so...spent.

The steam rose and blurred his vision, and elsewhere a wolf howled.

He fell asleep.

_Blood and wine and clumps of shredded_ _viscera all mix together as soup. Ravens peck at fresh corpses. A giant is slain, his great mass lying face down in the snow. Green fire burns in the distance. Where has everyone gone?_

He woke. She knelt by the side of the bath, her finger trailing lazily in the rapidly cooling water. Her eyes were distant; she did not see the ripples that she made across the surface. He observed her in profile, her high cheekbones, parted lips pink in the warmth of the room. Had she come to torment him again?

“Sansa,” he croaked, and she started, withdrawing her hand as if bitten and bolting upright. He was about to make a comment – something crass and cutting to prick her audacity – but before he could open his mouth he saw the blood drain from her face, her rosy lips turning blue-white. On some instinct he leapt from the water, knocking his shin with a clang against the tub, but just managed to catch the girl before she fell and cracked her head off the stone.

He lay for a moment with her head pillowed in his naked lap, dazed. Then the cold air of the room made its presence known and he groaned at the pain blooming in his lower back. The warmth of the bath water fled rapidly, cooling his skin to prickling goosebumps. He shivered.

Sansa stirred, blinking and she looked up at him with confusion, then revulsion settled as she noticed his nudity and she tried to wrench away.

He held her gently, “Stop. You fainted. Stay still.”

“I fainted?”

He nodded. “Let me help you up then I will...cover myself.”

She leant heavily on his arms as he led her to the bed, where she sat warily on the edge of the bed as far from their usual spot of frantic coupling as she could get.

Dressing quickly in his nightshirt and robe, he moved to the sideboard and poured a cup of water. Sansa watched his every move, and he wondered at what point she had started to consider him a predator worthy of her trepidation. She had never seemed this openly wary of him before, even when he stripped her bare and licked every inch of her naked skin and she would still be as closed to him as any besieged fort.

He pressed the cup into her hands. “Sip it.”

She wrapped both hands tight around the goblet as she drank. She was pale, he noticed. Her skin grey and her cheeks sunken. Petyr had thought the illness a pretence, an excuse to delay the voyage south. Perhaps there had been some truth in it after all and he ignored the pang of concern that he felt.

After all, her health was of no consequence to him if her head was removed from her shoulders.

Sansa handed the cup back to him without meeting his eyes and he placed it on the night stand. She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and he was pleased to see the colour return to her cheeks.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “If you are unwell you should be in bed.”

“It will pass.”

“Only if you rest.”

She ignored him. “You met with Jon earlier. What did you talk about?”

Ah, so that was why she was here. The clever girl certainly had her own spies in the castle, and he was oddly proud of her in that moment for being so astute.

“Your brother Bran has warned that the White Walkers are heading this way, that Winterfell isn't safe,” he said truthfully.

Her lips drew thin. “He wants to send me away,” she realised.

Petyr nodded and moved so that he could sit beside her on the bed, as the crouching position began to hurt his knees. “I am to take you to the Vale,” he said.

“You?”

“I am Lord Protector and I am hardly a soldier. I won't be needed here,” he pointed out.

She looked at him, her mind working. He would never, ever be able to accuse her of being slow-witted. He waited, but she said nothing.

“We leave with a compliment of men in two days,” he said, “and then sail from White Harbour. It should only take a few weeks to reach Gulltown.”

Her lip curled, just slightly and her fists gripped the furs of the bed. When she spoke it was a bitter thing, “I asked for your help to keep me safe _here,_ in my home.”

“Winterfell is no longer safe,” he said, hoping she would at least see this reason.

Sansa turned her head, looking at him properly for the first time as they sat next to each other on the corner of the bed. Her back was rigid. “And you expect me to believe that I will be safe with you?”

His mind fell back in time to that burned-out home in Molestown. The cold had shocked him, and he was glad of his cloak. He had waited for an hour before she showed, and he had not expected her to have her own Lady Guard. As the snow fell outside, Sansa's eyes had shone like precious stones: beautiful but sharp enough to cut a man open.

“It is for your own good, to protect you,” he said, but even as the words left his mouth he knew they would be met with disbelief. She cut right through him.

“Protect me?” She laughed without humour and stood so suddenly again he was worried she might fall. “No one can save me but myself, remember?” She paraphrased his cruel words. She had caught him nursing his own self-loathing that night and he had seen fit to take it out on her.

“Sansa, I could offer you assurances but-”

She cut him off harshly. “I wouldn't believe you? No, I never believe a word you say.” She paused and looked at him, and he noted that she looked oddly calm. “But you were right...I can only save myself.” She smiled at him, a grim, thin line that held no warmth. He was reminded sharply of Bran's knowing eyes in the Godswood, of Varys and his powdered, effete smirk. He did not know why but he felt like he had lost. “I have made my own protection,” she said.

He didn't follow her meaning. She arched a brow, her smile twisting her beautiful lips into something mocking as she leant towards him and he watched her. She stood in front of him, that horrible smirk still on her face and grasped his hand, her grip tight enough to cause discomfort, and brought it to rest gently on her stomach. For a moment all he could think of was the warmth of her beneath the blue velvet.

Then his strange fugue lifted and it all came rushing in like sea water in a capsizing boat. And like a salted Captain he knew when he was overcome.

He was a fool. The biggest one there is.

Of course. _Of course._

He was Littlefinger the brothel keeper, the whore monger. How had it taken him so long to realise? How could he not have seen this coming? He had been as conceited as those Lords he had so despised back in King's Landing, lead only by their arrogance and their cocks. All of this time he knew she had been playing some game, but he had thought himself the better opponent.

She had tricked him, with the oldest move: the whore's gambit.

He could not stop the hard, clenching knot forming in his stomach as he spoke, “You are with child.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *holds breath*
> 
> That is now most of the plot-heavy chapters done for now. Phew! Next chapter should be up quick. It's only a little one.
> 
> Also, a prize for anyone who can guess where I nicked the opening line from...


	11. Chains

“ _You are with child.”_

Sansa nodded, watching his face. He supposed there would be nothing to see there apart from dumb shock. His hand was still on her stomach, pressed flat against her dress. He could feel each shortened breath that she took, how taught she held herself.

How _blind_ he was, he thought, like any other.

Without warning his stupor changed into an ugly rage. It warred hot beneath his breast, threatening to spill out into the mindless urge for violence he deplored in most men. He grasped her chin in his hand, squeezing the pale skin hard. It was satisfying to see her flinch. “You stupid, foolish girl,” he muttered. She met his eyes with defiance. He wanted to strangle the life from them, see the blue fade to nothingness.

With a growl, Petyr wrenched himself away, launching up and across the room. Distance; he needed to stand as far away from her and this roiling, all encompassing rage. Some righteous id was screaming for pain and blood and breaking bones: this cocky little whore of a girl, it said, spreading her legs and attempting to force his loyalty, his hand, with the oldest play.

He ran a palm across his face just for something to do that was not raw aggression.

She had not moved, though her fists were closed tight in in her thick skirts. He noticed for the first time that she was wrapped fully from head to toe like a pious maiden, defending her flesh from his lecherous eyes. Her jaw clenched, chin raised, her eyes stared him down. There was fear there, but it was underneath a veneer of arrogance, a smugness that he knew only too well. This was what she wanted, to throw him off-balance, to create a turmoil that could be sculpted to her own advantage.

In this moment it gave him little satisfaction to know that she was indeed the finest student of his tutelage.

He stopped, and with great effort reigned in the wrath that crackled at his fingertips, forcing composure through long, calm breaths. The air that filled his lungs was cool. The fire sputtered and died.

“I gave you the moon tea to stop this exact thing from happening,” he said after a time and he could not help that his eyes lingered on her stomach.

“I didn't drink it it.”

“Obviously.” he ground out, his rage bursting again out of its poor shackles.

Sansa said nothing, only continued to watch him. Her eyes were dry, steady and held in a stony face that told him nothing. He felt like a novice Lord of the court, an amateur in the shadow of her practised poise. She held herself so still she might only be the cast of the woman he had bedded so wantonly, so readily. _Stupidly_. She had played him well and truly, using his hubris as her cloak and her cunt as her dagger. It was what he taught his girls, _the ways to make a man bow._

No, he thought, he was the greater fool here.

“You need to get rid of it,” he said, hoping his tone brooked no argument. This child was a risk, a variable that could not be controlled. It tied them to each other, irrevocably. Worse, a child was a weakness. He needed no new weaknesses: he already had her.

“No.” Her voice was cool steel with a bladed edge.

“Sansa...” he said and it sounded pathetically like begging.

“No,” she said again, still patient, but firm.

He groaned at her stubbornness – this wilful, beautiful woman. “Why?” he asked, and he was not even sure which question he really wanted her to answer: _why risk the chance that this would backfire? Why tether herself to him? Why force the hand of a man you know to be as dangerous as he?_

She pursed her lips, and frowned as if it were obvious and he the dullard. “I needed to protect myself,” she said.

He laughed. It was harsh and bitter. “You think that bastard in your belly will protect you?”

The mask slipped, just a small amount and revealed a fraction of doubt. “I think it will force you to change your plans for me,” she said.

“How do you know what I have _planned_ for you?” he said darkly: if he could scare her, he could at least wrest back some control.

“I don't.” Her back straightened and her eyes lowered to her lap. “But I know you.”

“You think I care?” he asked, unable to keep his voice as level as he'd like. He could not find a comfortable place to stand. He could not keep himself _still_. “Do you know how many pregnant whores I have forced to miscarry because it was _inconvenient_ to me?”

Sansa looked back up at him, eyes blue enough to bring colour to the dullest Northern day. The eyes of her mother. “None of them were your child. None of them were me.”

She was right and he hated her for it. He _hated_ her. “Did you think I would come over all noble?” he scoffed, trying to cut her down. “Change my ambition to play doting husband and father?” He smirked and tried to dig in deeper. “You became useless to me the day you let your half-brother usurp your birthright,” he said with a callous smirk.

The corners of her mouth turned up with small, sad humour. “We both know I am not useless to you. Cersei would pay a very high price for my head. Perhaps a title or two? And I am sure you could convince her to spare your heir.” She put a hand protectively on her flat stomach and he couldn't help but look, couldn't help but picture the child in there. His child, a son or daughter. It was enough to make him pause for a moment, enough to make him imagine a different sort of future. He raised his eyes and saw a gleam of triumph in her gaze and his anger came back full force as he realised she was manipulating him. Again.

But what were his choices here? Each path seemed overgrown with thorny hedgerows or twisted with darkness that held only the promise of wolves and bears and other beasts that would tear him limb from limb. Sansa was right, he could still betray her to the Mad Queen. And yes, he could wed her and legitimise the child. As soon as they were away from Winterfell, he could have her killed. He had done that and worse to jumped-up whores who thought they could break his hold.

But the truth she spoke wrapped like heavy chains around his own wrists: _none of them were her._

The anger fled him, the rage dissipating as fast as it came. He stared at the murky bath water, now cooled to the same temperature as the room. There was little else he could say, little else he could do. All his options now, any move against her in this castle, would be met with his own end. He had no doubt she would accuse him of baser things to have him thrown under lock and key. She would have no qualms in lying about the nature of their relationship if it meant gaining the upper hand. He knew as sure as he knew that he would do the same if it were his own neck exposed.

Petyr considered the wine on the table, and how much he could drink before numbness set in.

“How long do we have?” he asked and she looked at him confused.

“We?”

“Yes, we,” he said with impatience. “How long until this cannot be hidden?”

She looked down at her flat stomach and frowned. “I...I don't know.”

Of course, he realised, she would know nothing of this, losing her mother at such a young age and only learning cruelty at the hands of King's court. 

“When did you last finish your courses?” he asked.

She blushed but did not falter as she spoke, “The day the storm descended.”

His eyebrows shot up in surprise as he did some quick sums: that had been near three months previous. Had she fallen into his bed so quickly after reclaiming the castle? It felt like years had passed since the battle. He wondered if he would forget his life before Winterfell.

“Then we have perhaps a moon... at most,” he noted.

Sansa nodded, still blushing. “My handmaiden noted my corset had gotten tighter.”

“Do you think she suspects?” he asked with a frown. 

“Not likely. She is a silly girl,” she derided. “Though she has been very grateful for the supply of moon tea – she is bedding one of the Vale men. Harrold Hardyng, I believe his name is.”

He rolled his eyes. Of course that fool boy would be getting his cock wet in a serving girl. The knight was barely of age, barely blooded, and was already challenging the likes of Robert Baratheon for bastards.

“Then leave her here,” he said. “I shall get you a new handmaiden in White Harbour; a midwife.”

Suspicion warred with relief on her face, but she said nothing of his sudden change of heart. “Brienne will be coming with us." It was not a question.

“I certainly will not try to stop her,” he said wryly. “I prefer my head where it is.”

Taking a deep breath, she smiled and stood, smoothing the lines of her dress. “Good. We ride in two days?”

“Two days.”

She paused, not making to leave, but instead worrying her lip with her teeth. It was the most uncertain he had seen her since she entered his chambers. A long breath left her before she spoke. “And will you wed me?”

He considered her again. Could it be that simple? To take her as a wife and have sons and daughters. To have her in his bed, in his heart. To build a home in a great castle, rule as Lord and Lady until he went to his grave an old, infirm waste. To cast aside all he had worked for, every vow of vengeance he had sworn as he laid abed, his chest torn in two.

The iron throne, the realm, he saw it crumble. The steel withered and the bowing lords and ladies turned to dust in their finery. All that was left was cold, dead and empty. A crooked tower on a grey windswept shore stooped like a decrepit man, red-haired children wrapped in beggar's cloth played at the foot. The air stank of shit and rot and carried the mocking calls of bleating sheep.

The room was suddenly suffocating. The walls bowed inwards, the doorway shrank and the air was too hot to breathe; it burned his lungs. To hide his panic, he turned his back to her and leant fully against the mantle, grasping the stone for support. He felt his knees shake.

“Return to you your rooms and get some rest,” he said sharply, a clear dismissal. “Your brother will likely wish to speak to you in the morning.”

She said nothing, and only when he heard the door close could he breathe again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shortest chapter, took the longest to write. Go figure.


	12. Meltwater

From atop the walkways the courtyard glistened as the morning sun thawed the ice.

It was a precious scene: the parting of the last two Starks, this time the youngest riding South for his cause.

The lad was strapped into his saddle, a squire buckling the leather that kept him upright. Bran sat tall and Petyr noticed for the first time that the boy was actually built more similar to a Stark man than he had initially presumed; long in the back and shoulders showing a hint of the broadness they would become.

Brandon Stark's disability diminished him in the eyes of others, truly an advantage. To be always underestimated by your enemies, forever pitied, derided, or even forgotten. It would allow the boy to develop a strength and power irrelevant to his ability to stand.

Sansa moved to put her hand on the boy's deadened thigh and even from this distance he could see the grief in her eyes. Seeing her brothers again had rekindled some of the old fire in her, stoked a warmth that he had thought long lost. Now once again the Starks were scattering to the winter winds. Her arms wrapped tight around Bran's waist, and she buried her face in his stomach like a child hiding in a mother's skirts. The boy merely lowered a gloved hand to her red hair, soothing his sister. It was an odd reversal of sibling roles; the younger comforting the older. The broken boy shouldering the burden of the whole woman. 

Petyr considered the child that grew inside her, the life that he had helped create, albeit unwillingly. Sleep had not come last night. The panic that had descended pulled monsters from the darkness and every wretched shadow come to take pieces of him away. Even in the cold, grey dawn he tossed under his furs, trying to ply some simple logic from his maelstrom of thoughts. 

But the image of a smiling red-haired girl with green-grey eyes would tear into his mind. And he would see himself in his own Lord's solar, with a slight, dark-haired boy on his lap, teaching letters. Telling stories. His eyes would close and he could only see those babes made of his own intelligence and their mother's daring.

And that strange threat of tears kept pricking.

 _Weakness,_  he chided himself, wanting to rip those delusions from his head.He could not afford these fancies to plague him. These thoughts were like a sellsword with dagger pressed to his neck, calling for the highest price.

The wood of the walkway creaked, and he heard footsteps on the platform. Petyr turned to see the onion knight approach, hands clasped behind his back.

“Ser Davos,” he greeted.

“Lord Baelish.”

“Are we ready to travel?” he asked.

Davos nodded and leant on the railing. “The sleds are being loaded as we speak. The dogs are hardy; they should get you to the fork of the White Knife in days.” The older man looked at him. “You much of a rider?”

“I prefer a carriage."

“Of course you do,” Davos muttered but it was not unkind.

The man followed Petyr's gaze to the Starks in the yard, still settling their goodbyes. “Perhaps the boy is better off in the south, knowing what is coming,” he said. “Foul things are marching in the night.”

Wind whipped the banners on the walls of the keep, snapping the cloth into folds and distorting the grey and white of the direwolf sigil. Teeth and fur and eyes closed up on the Winter's air. Petyr watched as Sansa stepped back from her brother, shoulders slumped in mourning as Bran and the Reed girl turned their steeds and trotted out of the gate towards the King's Road. It pleased him to see that it only took moments for her back straighten, her face to set.

“And where will you be riding?” he asked Davos.

“North.” The set of the man's mouth held the same grim finality that Petyr associated with soldiers that expect only death. And when death is an army that roams always onwards, a full force against mounted men and knights, why would you not?

“You are a braver man than I,” he said honestly.

Davos chucked his head and smiled. “You make it sound like an insult.”

“Brave men can be foolish in their haste to prove themselves so."

Davos threw a knowing look, a sweep of appraisal. “In my experience, brave men come in many forms,” he said. “They don't always have to wield swords.”

 

~~~

It took less than a day to ride to the frozen river along the King's Road. The snows were thick but the snows had been packed by previous travellers and the horses had little trouble picking their way along.

Petyr had never seen anything quite like the hills that lay before them, white rises billowing and sinking, and the whole world muffled in the settling of winter. It was cold enough to turn his water pouch to half-hard slush and eventually the parts he could squeeze from the leather were a lot less than the lumps of ice that sat within. A jumble of sigils snaked ahead and behind; the Stark direwolf, the Vale's soaring blue falcon and a smattering of Cerwyn battleaxes, Glover fists and Manderly Mermen. The breath of a hundred men and horses puffed in icy clouds up into the clear sky, a crystal blue of Tully eyes.

He found he could not help follow Sansa with his gaze as she rode a pace ahead, flanked by Brienne and Pod. The girl looked weary, ill and uncomfortable on horseback. More than once she had dismounted in a rush, green, to retch into the snow. Petyr wanted to jump from his own courser but he resisted, instead allowing Brienne to be the one rebuffed by her Lady as she claimed an unsettled breakfast.

Their camp was soon set on the bank of the frozen river, the west fork of the White Knife that would lead them all the way down to the main course. The dogs barked and howled at their trainers as they were fed a healthy supper of freshly slain rabbit. Cookfires sprang up as quick as the thick hide tents, and the soldiers from all corners of the North and the Vale warmed themselves with game and hot mead.

Petyr looked up to the darkening sky, and frowned. The weather was beginning to turn, the winds picking up and the chill sharpening to needlepoint. He quickly sought shelter in his own tent. The walls, though thicker than the linen canvas that the Vale Knights had used were barely adequate to protect a man from the harsh elements of this realm and a harsh shiver soon set in.

He cursed the cold an not for the first time felt like a man misplaced. How these people ever survived one winter, let alone hundreds, was lost on him. He rifled through his trunk and pulled every pelt and cloak around his shaking form, huddling as low as possible within their warmth.

It was like this that the Lady Brienne discovered him.

“Lord Baelish, I wish to speak with you,” she called, not bothering to announce her presence. The woman loomed over him in his heap of furs and he felt like a small child, ridiculous. 

He shrugged off the layers with as much dignity as he could muster and tried not to wince as the cold air penetrated his clothes. “Lady Brienne,” he spoke with full courtesy to cover his embarrassment, “what can I do for you?”

She spoke without preamble. “It's the Lady Sansa, my lord,” she said, “I fear we need to turn back. She is unwell.” Her face was creased with worry and she seemed uncomfortable.

“Unwell? In what way?” He could not stop the faint panic that gripped him and it must have crossed his face.

“She is unable to stomach her food...for sometime now.” The taller woman gripped the hilt of her gilded sword, an anxious tick. “The riding has only made it worse.”

“That is all?” he asked, the flutter of his pulse settling. For a moment only the worst crossed his mind – thoughts of blood and pain too soon, morbid terrible things. He did not dwell on why it made his heart hammer and his throat clench.

“My lord?”

“Just sickness?” he asked, attempting a proper level of detached concern. “Has she...complained of anything else?"

Brienne shook her head, strands of dirty blonde hair fell into her eyes. “No, my lord. Other than fatigue,” she said. “But I fear she will only make herself more ill.”

“Does Sansa wish to return to Winterfell?” he asked, and Brienne grimaced at his familiarity but said nothing.

“No,” she said, her frown betraying her apprehension. “She is quite adamant we continue to White Harbour.” She pursed her lips, mouth tightening into a disapproving moue, reluctant to ask him of all people for any favour. “I was...hoping that you could convince her to consider her own health.”

Petyr raised a brow, and the woman's frown deepened. “If my Lady wishes to carry on, then that is what we shall do.”

“My lord-”

He cut off her objection. “Please keep me informed of her well-being.”

Brienne paused, a rebuttal lingering on her tongue but then thought better and turned to leave. At the flap of the tent she turned back with a hint of amusement that looked strange on her large face. “My Lord?"

"Yes?"

"...perhaps a fire?”

~~~

Davos' words proved true, and Manderly's men even truer. It took only a day and a half to sled downstream to meeting of the waters and the waiting _Black Trident._

Up ahead he could see where the thick ice of the tributary began to thin and crack into the fast-flowing waters of the great White Knife. Broken chunks like small bergs floated past the barge, moored at a wide wooden jetty that thrust out nearly a quarter of the way across the river. The boat was unlike any he had ever seen: large, broad and sitting high on the water. A single mast jutted from the centre, a sail wrapped tight around it. A small troop of men with the merman sigils of their Lord readied the simple rigging and settled the oars. A glorious carved Merman painted in the colours of the Manderly sigil, headed the prow.

As they approached, the musher pulled his leather gangline and the hounds complied, taking them swiftly up and off the frozen river along a graduated bank. Petyr could see the unloaded barrels of ale and crates of grain piled high on the shore that would be headed back to Winterfell to sure up the castle's provisions. It all seemed rather fruitless; if what the Stark boy said was true then it would not be long before the north was overrun by an army that had no need for food or Arbor Gold.

Brienne quickly escorted the Lady Sansa off of their sled and into the below the deck of _Black Trident._ He had noticed that her colour had been better riding on the smooth ice of the river than she had been on horseback. Still, she looked weak and wan.

Petyr moved from his own sled, taking care to avoid the tangle of lines attached to the panting hounds, and made his way up the gangway.

“Lord Baelish,” a man said as he approached, tall and late in his prime with a full grey beard, “Welcome aboard _Black Trident._ You have made good time from Winterfell.”

He nodded in greeting. “The first time I have travelled by dog sled. Quite efficient.”

“Only way to travel in winter, can be a bit chilly, mind,” the man said amiably, “Come, let me show you to your berth.”

Petyr followed the man down a short flight of stairs, the ceiling so low it would cause a taller man to crouch. He was lead down a passage to a small berth no wider than a privy with a simple straw-filed bed. The dismay at these arrangements must have shown on his face as the man looked apologetic and said, “The Lady Stark has the main quarters," he gestured to another door that lay to his right. "I hope these are adequate, my Lord.” 

“Yes...yes, of course.” He could not help but think of the day he plucked her from King's Landing, his scared, shaking little maid, onto the deck of his galley and placed her in his own opulent berth. As he slept on the scratching surface of another bed he had wondered if she would smell his scent on the silken sheets. He had even briefly entertained the idea of slipping in with the innocent girl to see what she would do, if she would blush as pink and pretty as her Mother once had playing kissing games at Riverrun.

“Let me know if there is anything you need, my lord. We shall be shoving off soon.”

Petyr nodded once again, and the man left him.

He thought again of Sansa's drawn face, and cursed. It never took long for his concern to steal back into his mind. His feet carried him down the passageway to the main berth. He tapped lightly on the thin wood and was greeted by a scowling Brienne. The room was larger than his own, but still small and he could see Sansa lying propped up by pillows on the bunk.

“The Lady Sansa is still not well and does not wish to be disturbed,” she snapped. _Go away,_ her face said.

“Brienne, let him in,” she said as she gingerly moved to sitting. “Leave us.”

“My Lady-” Brienne began to protest, her eyes darting between the two of them. Perhaps the woman feared he would jump into bed with the girl the minute her back was turned. Petyr wondered how far the woman's discretion could be stretched.

“Brienne...please,” Sansa placated. “It's fine.”

With a great reluctance befitting of her size the woman left, but he could still hear her clunking and huffing beyond the thin door. Sansa was still wrapped in her travelling cloak but had removed her gloves and thick stoles. Petyr itched to do the same as he began to warm in the shelter of the boat. Instead he stood rigidly opposite the bed like a heated fool.

“How are you feeling?” he asked with an awkward gesture, a wave in the general direction of her stomach. It pained him to be so beyond his depth, plunged deep in cold waters that held no pity for men who could not swim.

“Do you care?” she asked sullenly. He gave her a harsh look that told her he had no time for her petulance. “Tired. Sick. Aching. That I could cry for nothing one minute and then so angry I want to see heads roll the next. How is your son this much of a handful before he is even born?”

There was certainly a sliver of a second that his heart may have stuttered before he spoke. “My son?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I have decided it is a boy,” she said with weary pragmatism. “I wanted to stop using the word 'it' in my mind.”

“You cannot be certain,” he said, reminding himself more than her of the folly that had befallen many a wife and mistress.

She smiled. “Call it a Mother's instinct,” she said, her hand dropping to her stomach. He could not help but think that yes she looked like a woman with child; the fullness of her breasts, the slight thickening of her waist. His fingers had caressed every inch of her skin, his tongue had laved every scrap of salt and his dreams were full only of her beauty. He was an observant man, and he had looked upon her with more reverence than any other thing in this world. He should have noticed.

It wasn't until she spoke again that he realised he was staring.

“You never answered my question,” she said quietly, her face downturned but stern, “and don't pretend to not know which one.”

He swallowed his surprise and took a step closer before he answered. “You mean your proposal...” he said. “You would have me? I thought you could not trust me?” There was no venom, no mockery behind his tone. He could not find it.

“I don't,” she said.

“Why would you wed a man that you do not trust?”

“I don't trust you. But I know you.”

Yes, he thought, likely better than any other soul in the kingdom. Her mother had known Petyr, the small boy with vast dreams. Varys had the measure of Littlefinger the schemer, the puppeteer. Sansa Stark saw all the facets, and none seemed to surprise her. She could spin his carousel of masks to any point she chose.

“And so you know what kind of man I am.” He took another step, close enough to reach out and stroke her fiery hair if he so wished.

“I do,” she said, the words small, her voice smaller, breaking. “But I have to believe that you will love our child. I _have_ to.” Her face crumbled and tears began to pour down her cheeks. These he had not seen since that day in the Eyrie and even then her weeping had been for the benefit of those Lords and Ladies that sat trial at his fate. Then the tears had fallen in graceful lines, delicate drops of an icicle thawing in the winter sun. But this was a great glacial wall given way, the pressure built to breaking point and cracking like the dense bodies of frozen rivers that cascade into the sea.

As his hand brushed her shoulder she shuddered but did not shrug away.

He pulled her into his arms and settled her among the space between his heart and his grasping reach. She shuddered sobs into his shoulder, the fabric growing damp. Without a thought he pressed his lips to her soft hair and breathed in the sweet, sweet smell.

Petyr hushed and soothed, hands wrapped tight around her as she cried. He could not help but think of the child that they wrapped around too.

He did not know how long they stood in that embrace, but after a time her shaking settled and her breathing evened. He spoke softly into her ear, “I can make arrangements for as soon as we arrive in White Harbour. I see no reason why we cannot delay our trip for a week or two.”

Sansa pulled back, just enough to run her gaze over his face, checking for sincerity. Her blue eyes were shot with red, her nose sore. “Truly? You will make him your heir?”

He nodded, not trusting that his voice would make it steadily past the stone in his throat. Gods, he was weak in the shadow of her gratitude.

She grasped him tightly to her once again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

For the first time in a long time he thought of the end of Winter and hoped to see it come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /wangst
> 
> Next chapter has some actual honest-to-goodness humour and lightheartedness. Also, one of my favourite characters who has been criminally reduced in the show: Wyman Manderly. YES.


	13. The Changing Tides

The walled city of White Harbour rose out of the sea mists like a snow-capped mountain. The place certainly lived up to its name, he thought, as _Black Trident_ made her approach into the inner harbour. The air was full of the sea, a smell that wrenched him back to his sparse childhood on the Fingers. Fish trawlers, river barges and imposing war galleys lined the docks, a rabble of sails, oars and salted men.

Sansa had come out to stand on the deck, her eyes alight as they moored. True, it was an incredible sight. Perhaps not quite as decadent as the spires of King's Landing and lacking the lofty splendour of the Eyrie, but he was reminded of how little of the world she had seen. He was reminded of how _young_ she was.

The trip down the White Knife had taken a little under a week and in that short time Sansa had mellowed toward him considerably. The worst of her sickness had passed, and with that she seemed lighter. He noticed he watched her often, and she would catch his eye with a knowing smirk. What he was looking for he could not say, but since agreeing to legitimise the child she carried – _their_ child – he began to tumble further and further into the saccharine daydreams that haunted him since leaving Winterfell.

He pointed to the keep that jutted from the hill, a white jewel of this Northern crown. “That is New Castle, seat of House Manderly.”

“It's beautiful,” she whispered, awed at the sight. “It makes Winterfell look like a farmhouse.”

“Winterfell has it's own charm,” he noted and she shot him a look of faint amusement.

“Come, Lord Wyman has sent his litter.”

She allowed him to take her hand and guide her down the gangway onto the wooden docks. Around them the lewd chatter of the seamen quietened, as the noble Lady descended from the barge. Some bold men even stopped fully in their tracks to gaze at the stunning Lady Stark of Winterfell, her cheeks pink from the cold, Tully-red hair waving down her back.

Sansa smiled like a dutiful Queen and he could not help but squeeze her hand a little tighter. Nor could he help the smug look he shot Brienne as Sansa pulled him into the litter after her, leaving the mopish blonde scowling on the dock to draw her own set of stares.

The Manderly household was there to greet them as they entered New Castle, the guard clad in blue-green cloaks that spoke of the sea and armed with silver tridents instead of spears. The Merman sigil hung proudly from the walls. Lord Wyman, large and boisterous, waddled down the steps from the main keep as he helped Sansa from the litter.

“Lord Baelish! My Lady Stark! Welcome to White Harbour, it is an honour!” he boomed, grasping the girl in hands the size of hams with fingers thick as linked sausages and wrenching her into a fatherly hug. “Beautiful as ever. You look so much like your mother! Don't you think Baelish?”

Petyr tried his very hardest not to react to the man's over-familiarity, and instead nodded obligingly. He had only met the man a handful of times in his life and each time was the same trial. When he had been a ward of Hoster Tully, a sensitive and impressionable boy, Manderly had tousled his hair and teased him for his small stature. “Do you feed the lad?” he would roar, belly shaking with laughter. “I swear he's growing backwards!” Even when he was a man grown and the King's Master of Coin, Manderly would insist on calling him “boy” whenever he travelled to the capital on business.

Sansa lowered her eyes demurely but he could see she was biting her cheek in an effort to stop her laughter.

“Come, come!” Manderly bellowed – his only volume – and waved his hands at the gaggle of servants in the courtyard. “Let my stewards show you to your rooms so you can refresh yourselves after your journey. I have a great feast prepared for this evening – no doubt much more indulgent than your rations at Winterfell.”

Petyr stepped forward. “Lord Manderly, if you have a moment, there is something I wish to discuss.”

Sansa watched the exchange with an interested eye.

“Of course, my boy,” Wyman said, clapping a hand down on Petyr's shoulder hard enough to make him wheeze. “Let us talk in my solar.”

Petyr followed, the pace slow as the fat Lord shuffled along the corridors of the castle. The halls were a museum of rusting weapons, worn banners and other assorted trophies from ancient battles long past.

Manderly's solar was warm and dry and Petyr found himself immensely grateful for the comfort. With a great huff and an even greater groan, the Lord lowered his huge girth into his throne by the fire and gestured for Petyr to sit in the chair opposite.

“What can I do for you, Baelish?” he asked, hands spread wide. “No brothel business now, we both know it makes this town rich but that is no business for noblemen like you and I to be dabbling in.”

“No, nothing of the sort,” he conceded, at least a little pleased that Wyman seemed to view him as an equal, not as a lowborn Lord with foreign blood elevated well past his station. “In fact, I wish to ask a favour.”

“Ask away, boy. Anyone loyal to the Starks is a friend to this House.”

“I would like to delay our travels for a week or two,” he said.

Manderly frowned. “There is no guaranteeing the weather in two weeks. You are set to sail the day after tomorrow as planned. The galleys are ready to go; best ships in the Northern fleet!”

“I am aware, my lord, but I would not ask if it were not important,” he said and Wyman raised a curious brow. “I wish to make arrangements for a wedding.”

At that, the Lord sat up, eager. “A wedding, you say?”

“Yes,” he paused, and forced himself to stop twisting the rings on his right hand, “The Lady Sansa and I are...betrothed.”

Wyman's mouth dropped open in comical shock. “By the seven, Baelish! Betrothed?”

Petyr nodded and continued. “We wish to be wed _before_ we sail to Gulltown. And if it please you, I would like for you to be the Lord to give my lady away...in the absence of her father, as the most loyal Bannerman of Ned Stark.”

Petyr hoped that this tug on the strings of northern loyalty would ease his request. Lord Manderly pursed his lips and cleared his throat in the way that gallant men do when they are overcome with strong emotion. “I would be...honoured, my boy. Truly.” The broad man sucked in a breath and broke into a beaming smile that reddened his cheeks. “A wedding! Ha! A splendid occasion.” He slapped his hand down with resounding crack on the arm of his chair. “I will inform the Septon at once.”

Petyr inclined his head in gratitude. “Thank you, my lord. My lady will be most pleased.”

“I assume the King has given his blessing?” Manderly asked, off-hand.

“Lady Stark was released from her promise to Willas Tyrell with his untimely death. The King has since declared she can now match with whoever she chooses,” he said smoothly. It wasn't entirely a lie. Snow had not said as much, but neither had he commanded otherwise.

“And she chose you? You lucky little bugger, Baelish. What a match! Though, if I may ask, what's the urgency? Why not wait until you are back in the Vale?”

Petyr paused, unsure what to offer as an excuse. “My Lady is...keen to make it official,” he said but Manderly was a shrewd man and caught his hesitation.

He chuckled, clutching his over-large belly. “Oh ho! Is that so?” He smirked. “I am not a fool, my boy. It seems to me that perhaps you and your lady have already been a little _too_ keen..hmm?” Petyr knew his face had given him away and he began to speak. Manderly cut him off with a dismissive wave. “Fear not, I will say nothing. I don't blame you, she is a beautiful girl. Though what she sees in you, my man...” He laughed again. “Maybe there is hope yet for a fat, old codger like me!”

“I thank you, my lord,” he said and Petyr could not help the small smile which felt nothing like a smirk, but much more like joy. The old man's gaiety was contagious.

“Very well! May I be the first to congratulate you, my boy! I will make haste with the arrangements.”

~~~

 The chambers were large with lavish décor more familiar to a Southern keep. White Harbour was a rich port, but even so he had expected dour, grey rooms like Winterfell, filled with dour, grey Northmen. It was a pleasant change to see that Lord Wyman's castle was altogether more in keeping with his personality; brash, booming but also joyful and warm.

He bathed and changed with little fuss, choosing a fresh doublet from his trunk that was fit for the occasion. No doubt the jolly old Lord would wish to announce the news at the feast and toast to the marriage of two noble houses. It pleased him that Manderly had so readily accepted. He had no illusions that word of this betrothal would be met quite as happily by others, namely a certain brooding, bastard King.

Petyr glanced into the mirror to check his form and saw a strange man grinning back at him like a loon. He looked boyish, younger. _Fool_ , he thought, your soon-to-be wife is young but you are not. He adjusted his smile to a more suitable smirk and straightened the mockingbird pin at his throat.

Sansa was waiting outside the door when he emerged, fresh and glowing from her bath. She wore a modest gown of deep green, with silver embroidery and a knowing smile graced her face. “You have news, I hope?” she said as she took his arm. He inhaled the sweet scent of lemon soap.

“I don't know what you mean,” he teased.

Sansa smacked him playfully on the arm. It seemed she was in bright spirits, far, far away from the hard woman of Winterfell. The cold, dark castle was once her home and he could understand why she clung so tightly to the memories of her childhood. But it was also a place that had broken her. Perhaps it was best he had whisked her away from those ghosts.

He smiled and indulged her. “Yes, Lord Manderly has agreed to conduct the ceremony. Ten nights from now.”

“Did he not ask questions?” she asked with a tilt of her head. Her hair shone in the light from the sconces.

He paused, and frowned. “He...surmised the reason for our haste.”

Sansa nodded but did not seem perturbed. Instead she said, “I should write to Jon.”

“I would also ask that you inform the Lady Brienne when I am not within range of her longsword.”

She gave him a long, level look and for a moment the humour fell away. “Brienne knows. Everything. She has known for months.” The confession took him aback. The unwieldy woman clearly had an ounce more tact and guile than she presented. Sansa continued, some of the warmth returning to her face. “Although to say she is pleased would be a stretch...”

Petyr pursed his lips but said nothing. The wench was a brute, but he could not deny that she was staunchly loyal to Sansa. He hoped that would be enough to keep her sharp blade away from his soft neck. Unless he did something monumentally stupid.

As they neared the great hall, the scent of succulent roasts and raucous laughter carrying through the doors, he moved so that she could drop his arm and enter unattended. But Sansa only held on tighter, pulling him in close.

“We are betrothed, are we not?” she said by way of explanation, mischief in her blue eyes.

He inclined his head, the picture of Lordly grace. “Then I must get you a ring, my Lady,” he spoke, then lowered his voice and whispered in her ear, “so that all men know you are mine.”

She sparkled with amusement and held her rueful smile as they entered. Petyr noticed the Lord of White Harbour sat already at his table in a chair so wide it would hold two normal men, and the the man gave him a playful wink.

“Welcome Lady Stark of Winterfell to the Merman's Court,” he boomed across the hall, arms spread wide, his voice carrying easily over the merriment. “It is an honour to have you at my table.”

He lingered at Sansa's shoulder as she curtsied. “The honour is mine, My Lord. I thank you for your generous hospitality,” she said.

“Sit! Sit! Let us feast, my lady. Lord Baelish.” Manderly waved his hand and the servants began to bring out a train of platters piled high with boar, lamprey, deer, capon and a whole menagerie of other beasts besides.

Petyr escorted Sansa to the high table, hand resting lightly on the small of her back and pulled her chair to the right of Manderly. He placed himself on her left side, a respectable position he was often not afforded. Underneath, their knees brushed as she arranged her skirts.

With huge effort, Lord Manderly stood and raised his cup. “Lords, Ladies, brave Sers,” he called as the hall settled to a hush. “Tonight is a joyous occasion. Tonight we toast to the future union of the House Stark and House Baelish. My Lady, My Lord, you do this family a great honour.”

There were a few faces etched in surprise, but all followed suit and toasted with their Lord. He turned to Sansa and found her smiling girlishly. It was surely an act for the crowd, but the crinkle in the corners of her eyes told him that she was pleased.

The evening passed in a gluttonous blur, and though he avoided the strong ale, taking care to sup his wine slowly, he felt drunk with the pleasure of it all. Every time he heard Sansa laugh at the japing Lord Wyman, or glimpsed the brightness of her smile, he felt a little more alive, a little less empty. He grasped for a time when he had last seen her so carefree. So _young_.

Not too long ago he worried he would never see her happiness again. The black shroud of Ramsay Bolton had snuffed out the light in her, and it pained him to look and see only the hard, stone wall he was responsible for building. He had wanted to teach her, yes, mould her. Make her a little more like him, to bring her close. But he had never wanted to destroy her. As a man made of scar tissue, he knew how hard it could be find the parts that were still whole, still unmarred. The parts that could feel lightness, joy, hope.

When Petyr caught her try to stifle a yawn for the third time in five minutes, he leaned over and spoke in her ear, “My Lady, you should get some rest.”

Like a stubborn child, she tried to refuse him but another heaving yawn broke her words. He stood and signalled to Brienne who sat at a table across the hall, for once not dressed in full armour but a soft jerkin. The woman came swiftly up to the high table. “Lady Sansa is exhausted,” he told her. “Could you please escort her back to her rooms.”

Brienne scowled - and he was beginning to think that maybe her great, pallid face was simply fixed that way – but nodded. “My Lady.”

Sansa sighed and let him pull her to her feet, grasping her hand lightly in his own. He made a great display of bowing and bringing her soft skin to his lips. “Sleep well, my lady.”

His clever girl made a maiden's show of being flustered by his attentions and curtsied, before she turned and left the hall, Brienne looming over her shoulder.

The Merman's Court was still full of revellers, the music played on. Most were merry - or beyond merry - but the room was jubilant, a whole city in the north still bright and whole. How many of these men and women truly knew of the threats that lurked in the South or on the edges of the Seven Kingdoms? The people of White harbour still lived as though it were the height of Summer.

He downed the dregs of his wine to chase away the gloomy bent of his thoughts.

“How you have not already slipped out after that fine girl, I'll never know,” Manderly muttered beside him. Petyr gave the Lord a questioning glance and the older man merely chuckled, breath heavy with ale. “Go on, begone with you. You'll not get her any more with child.”

He did not need to be told twice.

~~~

The night was clear enough and the moon bright. Sansa perched at the great window of her chambers, looking out over the harbour. The air was cold, bracing, but somehow so unlike the cruelty of the wind at Winterfell. The water held the glint of precious stones, some water god's diamonds shimmering on the surface of the sea. Seal Rock stood like a sentinel out in the bay, a crowned rock as ruler of the Bite. Nights like this were a rare thing on the Fingers, always dull and grey and shrouded in fog. The young Petyr might not have grown to resent the place so much had it looked like White Harbour did this evening.

He could see her silhouette through the outline of her nightgown; it caught the slight rise of her stomach, the swell of her breast, and a base possessive instinct reared in him. He made sure to be heard as he moved up behind her.

“It's cold, you should close the shutters," he said, his words soft.

“Stop hovering,” she chided but he could see the corner of her mouth tilt upward.

“I'm not hovering...” 

“Yes, you are. You look like I'm going to break in half every time I so much as stand up. You've been doing it since we left Winterfell,” she said and turned her head to look at him. She slipped her hand gently into his own and tugged him to the ledge that served as her seat.

“It has been a very long time since I have been this...” she looked out again at the city and he could hear the waves that lapped in the harbour as she tried to find the word. He stroked his thumb along the back of her hand. “...this peaceful.”

“So...you are happy?” He was unsure whether he wished to know the answer if her denial would crush this tentative truce.

She sighed. “How can anyone be happy knowing what is out there, what is coming? There were moments tonight that I _forgot_  that Jon is marching North to-” She cut herself off, shaking her head. “And Bran! My little brother is out there on his own again. When I remember I felt guilty. Selfish. Here I am feasting and laughing.” She took a deep breath and squeezed his hand. “But it feels good to forget. For a time.”

“It was good to see you smile. For a time.”

She lowered her eyes to their intertwined fingers. He let her think, let her sit in the cool wind that stirred along the shores of the Shivering Sea. He looked out and imagined he could see his childhood home, connected to this place by the vast water stretching out to the horizon.

“I have been thinking of names,” she said and he turned to find her steady gaze on him.

“Oh?"

“Like...Eddard?” she said and his face must have looked mutinous for she could not hide her teasing grin. He yanked mischievously on her fingers as reprimand and she laughed. It was as light and glorious as the moonlight. “Though, seriously, I was thinking...something Braavosi.”

He scoffed. “Do you want the boy to be shunned?”

“I want him to know where he came from,” she said, her eyes flitting across his features. He could not name the strange thoughtfulness that settled in their depths.

“The higher lords of the land would dislike that,” he pointed out, not taking his own gaze off her face.

“In a years time there may be no high lords left.”

He could not argue with that.

Her tongue darted out to lick her lip and he had to look away. Lowering his eyes to her gently rounded stomach, his curiosity got the better of him. “Can you feel him yet?”

“Not really. It's more like... a fluttering. Or-” She pulled a face. “-maybe indigestion.”

He barked a laugh, and the sound surprised them both. It was a noise rusty from misuse, but the way her face lit up made him want to chuckle and roar like the fat Lord Manderly for the rest of time.

In the moonlight - the cold perfect hue, falling over the bay - everything fell away. The endless tangles of plots, the empty players and all the titles and lands and places he'd climbed besides. All needless, all nothing. Perhaps it would not be so bad to stand on the edge of this kingdom, on his father's land, and toss it all into the waves. Yes, he thought, it could be good to forget for a time. 

A loud gusting, snap made Sansa start.

“What was that?” she asked, her eyes falling to the sloped grey roofs that stretched out before them.

He looked down at the bay and saw the large sails of one of Manderly's tremendous war galleys loose and flapping in the wind. It had picked up since their arrival and some fool sailor had not made his knots correctly. By morning the ship could be halfway out to Essos.

He set his face stern, mimicking the sullen tone of the Northmen around their campfires. “Direwolves, giants, mammoths... beasts to come eat you in the night.”

She giggled at his teasing. “Grumpkins and snarks?”

“Very possibly! What sounds do they make?” he asked, feigning alarm.

“Terrible, awful sounds. Sounds that make your hair stand on end,” she grinned.

He reached out and wove his fingers into the ends of her hair. “Wouldn't want that,” he murmured, captivated by the way the reddish strands moved and flowed like fire in the moonlight.

“You need to practice those tales before our son is born...” she said quietly, leaning closer. Her gaze moved to his lips, and he was drawn in, helpless like the water below must move with the whims of the tides. Her breath grazed his face like warm wind, her mouth parted in anticipation. 

Then the light from the bay flickered and for a moment there was darkness, complete and black. It was as if the moon had been snuffed out. A sudden gust of wind came harsh and hot like desert air, and a great roar rattled his bones. Sansa's hair flew up around her face, whipping about in the unnatural breeze

She clutched his hand, and he pushed her behind him into the room. He could feel her fear, or maybe his own, pounding through his skin. Plunged into shadow, he could only make out the shine of her terrified eyes. He followed her gaze out the window and his heart stopped.

Huge, black wings beat the air, as wide as the war ships that lay in the harbour below. Wave upon wave of heat washed over them. He caught a glimpse of an eye, yellow and terrible, slashed through with a slit. Teeth, rapier sharp glistened in a maw that could swallow a child whole. The air was dry and heavy as if he stood in front of a funeral pyre. His skin felt singed. His breath felt thick and painful through his chest, he tried to swallow but his mouth was arid. He felt Sansa move to look over his shoulder and he forced her back with his steps, as far away from the window as the room would allow. 

The moonlight had returned and in it he could see Sansa's eyes were wide, likely a reflection of his own. He floundered for words to reassure her, to soothe them both, but all he could do was clutch at her shoulders like a lifeline. They trembled beneath his grasp.

The beast growled, a low horrid rumble, then turned, soaring over the city and down to the sea. Petyr watched as it swooped over Seal Rock disappearing around the curve of the bay. 

It was true, every word from the east. Every tale he had scoffed at, dismissed as superstitious ramblings. And yet he could not comprehend what he had seen.

 _A dragon_. A dragon in the North.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Baelish's House colours are the same as Slytherin's. Huh. Funny that.


	14. Dreams, Myths, Truths

A small child with dark hair perched by a crackling fire, heels folded underneath, clothed in an un-dyed woollen tunic. The room was dark and cramped with beads of damp rolling down the rough hewn walls. The only aperture, a window no more than an empty slit, displaying a bleak vista of drizzling, grey sea mist, and bare marshy pastures. Sounds of wash, cawing gulls and bleating sheep drifted in off the tide.

In a simple wooden chair sat a slight man with similar hair, though his was streaked through with grey, face worn more by the weather than age, hands folded in his lap. There was no opulence to this man, no pretence. No sigil adorned his plain doublet, no jewels, pins or delicate embroidery. This man was a Lord, but he held no stock in that title. Titles were only words after all.

“Gone now, long gone,” he was saying, voice a low whisper, weaving a tale in the cloying air.

“Like mother?” the child asked.

“Yes,” the man said, “like your mother.” Pain flitted across his features.

The child was too young to understand, and pushed instead for the man's tale.“Tell me about the dragons, Papa.”

His mouth lifted in a smile and he leaned forward in his chair. “Well...” he said, with a fearful husk, “they were monstrous!”

“As big as a house?”

“Bigger!” he cried. The child gasped, eyes wide. The father continued, enjoying his role as storyteller. “And they could breathe fire so hot it could melt stone, turn whole cities to ash. The great castle of Harrenhal was once the grandest seat in the land. Then the Targaryens came with their dragons...”

“How did they get dragons?” The child was mesmerised, eyes flashing colours of the sea in the firelight.

“Their blood was that of old Valyria, ancient and full of magic,” he said. “They were the only ones who could tame the beasts, the only ones who could ride them.”

“They could _ride_ the dragons?”

“Of course!” The man threw up his hands, gesturing wildly for the benefit of the child. Deep scars cut across his palms, silvery lines as straight as an arrow. “All across the lands they flew, conquering Westeros a kingdom at a time, eventually uniting the seven separate realms. Noble conquerors they were, but conquerors all the same.”

“But what about the people that were already living there? What happened to them?” the child asked keenly, bouncing up and down.

“The Targaryens were not blood-thirsty, but some refused to bend the knee. Those were the men and women who were roasted alive!”

The child's eyes flicked to the fire, before edging back. “I think I would do as someone said if they had a dragon.”

“Because you are not a fool. Use your mind, it is far better than any sword at keeping you alive,” he said, leaning back in the rickety chair before he continued. “Most thought the same as you and bowed to the new rulers of the land. That is how the Targaryen's brought peace to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.”

The child thought for a moment, chewing down on a lip, then asked, “Are they all gone - the dragons - really?”

The man shrugged, making a show of considering the question before he spoke. “Who knows?” he said, and his voice rolled to a low whisper. “ _Some_   men say they will come again, when the world needs them. _Some_ say there are dragons out there still, in the mountains and soaring high above the clouds...ready to swoop down...” he leaned in close to his rapt audience, “...and gobble up naughty children that stray too far from home!”

The child squealed as the man launched his attack of ticklish fingers, and the two wrestled on the floor, neither bothered by the cold of the stone. “Papa! No please! Stop!” said the child through peals of laughter, trying to squirm away from the father's tortures.

The man relented, an indulgent smile spread wide across his face that didn't quite meet his eyes. His sadness returned for a moment, fleeting, then the child yawned, mouth stretching wide.

“Come, it is time for bed,” the man said softly holding out his scarred hand.

A lip came out, jutting in protest. “Papa! I want to hear more!”

“Hush, sweetling,” he said and lifted the small child into his arms. “I will tell you more tomorrow.”

~~~

"Petyr! Petyr!" a distant voice begged and slim hands clutched at his doublet.

"We have to tell Lord Manderly, now!"

The night air was still hot, stifling even in this large room. The sconces seemed bright. He tried to blink away the flashing fire in his vision.

"Brienne!" the voice was still shouting, desperate. It sounded so familiar...

A door slammed open and it was enough to make him startle. Brienne of Tarth stood in the entryway, decked head to toe in fine black armour, her Valyrian steel sword drawn. He turned his head and was met wide wide, blue eyes and realised that they belonged to the woman still grasping at his chest. Sansa was white, lips drained of blood.

She brought a gentle hand to his face. "Petyr," she said, stressing his name, "We _need_ to raise the alarm."

He nodded, searching for his equilibrium but the room still span. “Yes. Yes. At once.”

“My Lady?”

“Brienne come, I will explain on the way.”

Sansa wrapped herself hastily in a robe and donned her riding boots. There was little time to worry about decorum. As they shot down the stairs and into the castle proper, the girl tried to find words to explain to her sworn knight what they had just seen...and what had seen them.

The large woman's face was stoic as ever, the crease between her brows the only sign of consternation. “A dragon, my lady? Are you sure?” Brienne looked to him for confirmation but he found he could only nod.

It took the Lady Knight less than a moment to absorb this information, then she nodded sharply and spoke, “I will alert the household guard.” With that she took off down the hallway to the castle garrison, armour rattling with every stride.

A cold hand gripped his own, and he looked down. Sansa's hands were smaller than his own, he noticed, fingers slender and feminine. She squeezed tight.

“We need to raise Lord Manderly,” she said.

Together they rushed to the Lord of White Harbour's tower, passing the open doors of the Merman's Court now empty save for a few drunken revellers and weary servants clearing the remnants of the feast. The night was still and frozen, as they raced out of the main keep. A guard bedecked in the Manderly colours who stood half attentive at his post leaning heavily on his trident, shot to attention as he saw them approach. Sansa was still half-dragging him along behind her across the courtyard.

“Wake Lord Wyman immediately,” she demanded, her tone broking no argument. The guard did not even hesitate, years of conditioning to follow orders from his betters taking precedent over any doubt, and disappeared through the door.

They were about to follow the guard into the tower when a long, low blast of a horn sounded. Goosebumps prickled at Petyr's skin: someone – or something – was at the gates. He looked up at the sky, and saw Sansa do the same, her eyes full of fear. The brightness of the fires on the curtain wall obscured his sight, and he could only blink into the expanse of blackness.

But then came again the snapping of air, that great hot gust of wind.

This time he was the one who squeezed Sansa's hand.

A tight, sharp pressure curled in his chest, claws built of dread ripped into his pounding heart. _Powerless._ He was powerless in the face of this creature. How could a man reason with a dragon? How could a man trick, or ply or deceive a beast that shouldn't exist?

He pulled Sansa to him like a desperate, drowning man. Her fingers gripped tight to his doublet. He wasn't even dressed in mail, he realised, let alone plated armour. And foolish, pathetic specimen that he was, he had only a dagger at his hip. Petyr's eyes searched for the towering form of Brienne and he cursed the only time the Knight was not hovering at his lady's side.

Shouting and yelling began to come from atop the wall; the guards that stood over the portcullis were leaning over, gesturing orders. Some had their bows drawn, strings taught and elbows bent, aiming at something on the other side of the lowered metal gate. Others ran along the walkways, rallying the soldiers. The horn blew again.

“What in Seven Hells is going on!” Manderly's voice boomed, as he emerged from the tower. His hefty form was still clothed in a long nightshirt and robe that skimmed the ground but he grasped a broadsword the size of Petyr. Two guards followed on his heel. “Baelish?”

“My Lord-”

His answer was cut off by an unearthly roar that trembled in shock waves through the night air.

The commotion at the gate had gotten louder. Petyr could hear men at arms calling "Stand down!". The demanding voice on the other side was seemingly not in the mood to comply. Sansa pulled her head up with a frown, looking towards the noise.

Another gust of arid air made him look up, dreading what he would see. A horrible death perhaps, plummeting out of the night sky.

The dragon descended. Its monstrous wings flapped, gusting the courtyard in intense heat. In the light of the fires he could see the thing was not black as he had originally thought, but a deep, smoking green with shimmering pearlescent scales. He wondered if they would be hot to the touch.

The ground quaked as it landed with a thud. This beast of myths, he thought, now very real and great and apparently very heavy for a thing that could fly.

Petyr found that he had become strangely calm, detached, as if he stood beside himself and his fear. The boy in him was oddly delighted at the prospect of death by dragon – a much more interesting end than a sword to the gut. He noticed too that Sansa had stopped trembling and clutching, her eyes moving between the beast and the gate. He could see her mind working. He saw Manderly's jaw set, clenching hard, as his ham-like fist tightened around the hilt of his sword. 

Several of the guards around them had drawn their tridents, as if their petty lengths of steel were a match for the monster that loomed before them. It roared again, the call sounding very much like a warning. Yellow eyes flashed. One man shook so hard that he dropped his weapon with a tinny clang.

“My Lord?” a man from the wall above them shouted, voice wavering with panic. “What shall we do?”

Even though he still held his sword aloft and had readied his stance, Manderly's eyes were narrow. Petyr watched him take in the scene; the risks of battle and the options available to him. “Raise the gate,” he growled, loud enough for his men to hear. “Let the buggers in! We yield.”

Petyr heard the whirring clank of the mechanism as the portcullis began to rise, but he could not tear his eyes away from the dragon still perched like a savage bird the size of a war galley in the centre of the castle's yard. Then before he could stop her, Sansa pulled away and stepped towards the opening gate. He groped after her as her hand slipped from his, but another roar from the dragon made him cringe back. 

“Sansa!” he yelled. 

But it was too late: mounted men and soldiers poured into New Castle, a marching horde of dark-skinned men in armour far unsuited to the cold climate of the north. Some carried spears. Others held strange curved blades. Then Petyr saw the banner as it unfurled: three-heads of red on a sea of darkest black.

At the head of the column a man so small that he assumed at first it was a child reared up his steed directly in front of Sansa and removed his helm.

“My lady wife,” grinned Tyrion Lannister, “what a pleasant surprise!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp, that's my brain fried.


	15. Queer Bedfellows

“Rhaegal,” Tyrion called, and the dragon raised its scaled, green head, “you have been most helpful. Now go hunt.” A puff of steam signalled the beast's assent and with a mighty heave it took off into the night sky, leaving a stunned, silent courtyard. 

Tyrion lead his horse around and nodded in greeting to the Lord of New Castle. “Lord Manderly, I apologise for waking you.”

The huge man growled, his rage barely restrained. “Alright Imp, I've yielded my castle. I'll not have any bloodshed.”

The dwarf merely raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Worry not, I am not here to conquer,” he said, chucking his helm to one of the speared soldiers. “I have been sent as an envoy of Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name, rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and the great city of Meereen. I wish to treat with the North.”

“You have a funny way of coming in peace,” snapped Manderly.

“Ah yes...the dragon,” Tyrion said, as though he only just realised the spectacle of it all. “I can see how that would send a mixed message.”

Petyr watched Manderly closely, and steeled himself to make a pacifying move. He was shadowed by the older man and a band of household guard so was unsure whether or not the dwarf had noticed him. Manderly's jaw twitched, his nostrils flared and he exhaled sharply, a parody of the creature that had just flown off into the night. Lord Wyman was perceptive, and far smarter than he let people believe. But he was also a blooded Northerner, prone to fits of honour, nobility and pigheadedness when others threatened their own.

After a long silence the Lord spoke, “Very well,” he muttered, not bothering to hide his disgruntlement, “if you are not here to seize this keep then I open my doors to you and your men. After all...anyone who's murdered a Lannister is a friend of mine.”

Tyrion grinned, full and toothy. “Excellent! In that case, if I could trouble you for a hot bath and your finest wine? It has been a long, dry journey.”

~~~

It was not often that a thing took him by surprise. But here he was, face to face with a man - the half-man - he thought long gone, if not dead. Tyrion Lannister perched at the end of the long table in the Merman's Court, bolstered by pillows. Behind him stood one of those ill-armoured men, back straight, arms bare, and a grim solider's glower set beneath a shorn skull. It was enough to chase any smart words from his mouth.

Lord Manderly rested his weight in his girthy chair, absent of any jolly countenance.

Sansa followed a step behind and they both settled into their seats. There had not been chance to speak, to reconcile what had happened the night before. He had gone to her rooms this morning to find her absent and his tired mind could only play tricks on ordered thought. There was a strong likelihood that she was with the Imp, using the small time before the parlay to take his measure. It is, after all, what he would do in her position.

Her reaction in the courtyard still unnerved him. Had she recognised the dwarf's tone even through the chaos? Identified his voice over the shouting, panicking guards? They had once been man and wife, a sacred vow. He had delved so little into their short history as Lord and Lady Lannister, wanting only to know if she were still intact. The maiden Sansa had blushed, stammering an affirmation of her virginity. And he had been satisfied.

But... _he had called her his Lady Wife._

Petyr's gut clenched with ugly jealousy.

“Well isn't this a sight for weary, home sick eyes! Lady Sansa, it truly pleases me to see you looking so well. And of course as beautiful as ever,” Tyrion crowed, brandishing a cup of wine with his usual languor. “And Lord Baelish! Well...you are here.”

Petyr inclined his head in a mockery of etiquette. “A fine entrance, my lord,” he said “You did always have a flair for the dramatic.”

Tyrion smirked and gave Petyr a knowing look. “Rhaegal does as his mother bids him and clearly The Queen wishes that I arrive in style.”

“Your “style” may have gotten you and other innocent men killed, my lord,” Manderly said through gritted teeth.

“I apologise. Truly,” he said with sincerity. “Rhaegal is a clever beast. He would not harm a man who is not a threat to me. However sometimes I think he enjoys scaring the wits out of people. I give my word that it will not happen again. I am here as an envoy of the Queen, nothing more.”

“And this queen would be Daenerys Targaryen?” Petyr asked.

“Indeed. She has come to take back what is rightfully hers.” Tyrion looked into his wine, and his brows drew together. “Apparently from my dearest sister before she decides to incinerate any more noble families.”

“And you would wage war against your own blood?” the fat Lord's ire was fading but he still maintained his wariness of the man currently holding court in his own Great Hall.

“As you said, Lord Manderly: I am a kinslayer. The most evil kind of man there is. What's one more on lion on the pile?”

“And you think Queen Daenerys is capable of bringing peace?” Sansa asked, chin held high, face imperial. Petyr resisted the urge to reach out and brush his hand over hers. He wanted to feel the frisson of her strength.

“I _know_ she is,” the Imp replied with conviction. “I have seen her rule with kindness and wisdom. _She_ is the Queen this kingdom deserves.”

“She made you her hand, of course you would say that,” scoffed Manderly, eyes still narrowed. He had not touched the cup in front of him.

“Yes,” he drawled, “but I could have walked away at any time. Lived out my days surrounded by whores and drowning in wine. She has earned the fierce loyalty of thousands across the Narrow Sea, all those who have seen her character and her conviction.” He stopped. Petyr watched the play of emotion across the man's face with interest. Tyrion swallowed a large gulp from his goblet, blinked and then quirked a wry smile. “And, she has three dragons, an army of Unsullied, a Dothraki horde, a fleet of Ironborn and the whole kingdom of Dorne behind her.”

“You wish to propose an alliance with the North,” Sansa stated, donning her political veil. Her Queen's mask.

“I do, my lady,” said Tyrion, eyeing her in a way that Petyr did not like. “I assume you are able to speak for your half-brother?”

Sansa nodded once, curt. “I am. What are your terms?”

Tyrion watched her for a moment before answering, his shrewd gaze moving up Sansa's form. Petyr gritted his teeth. “Simple: you help the Queen regain her throne. Pledge your armies and allegiance, she will grant the King in the North his title. And of course, bring peace to the realms.”

“But Jon would bow to her, your Queen?”

“In name only. She would see the North rule as an independent, allied Kingdom.”

Manderly exchanged a look with Sansa, but said nothing. 

“It will be done,” she said, “though I have some terms of my own.”

Tyrion nodded for her to continue.

“My brother's army marches North, not South, to face the threat at the Wall. He needs support, and that Dragon could be a valuable asset.”

“The Wall?”

Manderly spoke, “My lord, it is a threat far greater than the Mad Queen." His large, ruddy face was grave.

Tyrion looked from the fat Lord to Sansa and then finally to him, his brows drawn together in scepticism. “No wait,” he said, “don't tell me: Winter is coming?”

The dusky soldier with the shorn hair reacted, a sharp jerk of his head towards the Imp. Tyrion did not notice and was silent, considering their words.

“It is true,” Petyr said, weighing in, “There are creatures coming from beyond the Wall. King Snow has taken his forces to defend the kingdom from an army of the dead.”

The dwarf held his gaze. “The Wall is a strange, ancient place. It can make superstitious fools out of the most rational minds,” he said. “And making Ned Stark's bastard your King... I shall never understand Northerners.” He placed his empty cup on the table and a girl rushed over to fill it. “However, if there is one thing a Northern man is not, it is dishonourable. The cold must freeze out your sense of self-preservation.”

Manderly huffed, but it sounded more like humour than derision.

Tyrion nodded. “Very well. I will send Rhaegal north with the men here to support Jon Snow and return to the Queen and inform her of this threat.”

“I thank you, my Lord,” said Sansa, the straight-backed facade melting for only the merest fraction of a second.

Tyrion waved away the gratitude. “Thank your brother, my lady, for I am only returning his kindness, bastard to bastard.”

~~~

The soldier appeared at his door. “Lord Tyrion wishes to speak with you,” he said with his heavy accent. It was the same man who has stood behind his lord, one of the Unsullied. Essos was a large place, kings and their armies came and went without word ever reaching these shores. But he had heard of these men. Supposedly the most formidable slave warriors in the world, trained from birth, gelded, blooded and sold to the highest bidder. Dark eyes revealed nothing in this boy turned war machine

“What is your name?” he asked.

“This one is Grey Worm.

He blinked. He wasn't sure what he had expected. “Tell me, Grey Worm, why do you serve your Queen?”

The man frowned and was silent for so long that Petyr thought he would ignore the question. When he spoke, in his stilted Common Tongue, it was though the words were pulled from him against his will. “Have you ever been a slave?” he said.

Petyr shook his head. "No."

“Then you will never understand why.”

~~~

Petyr entered the chambers, as opulent as his own, to find the dwarf reclining on a padded lounger, sipping from his ever-present cup. Tyrion did not look up as he entered. When he spoke, he did so to the window. “It appears I have been cuckolded.”

“My Lord?”

“The Lady Sansa is with child,” he said into his wine. “It is as plain as the nose that is not on my face.” He swung his stubby legs round and leant back to look at him levelly. “So that leads me to believe that there is a Bolton in her belly or... someone _else_ has slipped themselves between the girl's furs.”

Petyr said nothing, and did not waver under the Imp's appraising glare. To speak one on one with Tyrion Lannister without a ready shield of indifference was to walk into a lion's den covered in deer's blood.

The shorter man pretended to consider, stroking his beard. “Yes, perhaps a little mockingbird bastard?” he mused. “She _is_ beautiful, comely. Lovely tits. And so much like her mother...tell me, does my wife scream when you fuck her?”

He fused his lips together with staunch will, clasped his hands in front of him. The picture of serene disinterest.

“Actually, no,” said Tyrion and held up his hand, “don't tell me. I don't wish to imagine you unclothed and rutting.”

Petyr continued to stay silent, still. Let the man enjoy the sound of his own japes.

“Are you going to marry the girl then, make an honest woman of her?” the dwarf asked.

He broke. “How can I do that when, as you have so explicitly pointed out, she is _your_ wife.”

“Yes, well, neither of us really wanted that. I am sure it won't be hard to have Queen Daenarys dissolve that farce of a marriage," Tyrion said with a devilish smirk. “I just enjoy watching you squirm.” He gestured to the seat across from him, a gaudy wing-backed affair with plush velvet upholstery in the blue-green of the Manderly sigil. “Sit down and have some wine.”

Petyr did as he was bid, helping himself to a cup. He was careful to only fill the thing a fraction.

“You've gone soft, Baelish,” Tyrion was saying. “The man I knew would have just tossed the girl to the highest bidder, babe and all.”

“Perhaps you never knew me very well?” he said archly, taking the smallest of sips. It was a fine vintage, imported from the south and it sat pleasantly on his tongue.

Tyrion gave him an appraising look.“Ah, but you did consider it, didn't you? What my sweet sister would pay for that beautiful head...”

Petyr lifted a wry brow and gave a delicate shrug. “She promised to name me Warden of the North.”

The other man rolled his eyes. “How typical of Cersei to promise what isn't hers to give,” he said. “And foolish.”

“Oh?”

“In one reckless move, she would be handing control of three of the Seven Kingdoms, and their armies to one man,” he pointed out. “A dangerous man. But then, you knew that.”

“All meaningless; I have yet to deliver on my promise. I hold nothing.”

“No, instead you went and bedded your bargaining chip. I thought you were smarter than that. Able to resist the cunts of a hundred whores, but not hers...” He leered and Petyr wanted to choke the bawdy look from his mangled face. “And so you are the Lord of Empty Promises.” He paused, then grinned. “I wish to offer you an alternative.”

“I seem to recall falling for this trick before,” he said. The promise of Harrenhal for an agreement of betrothal, his eyes had lit so bright with greed that he was blind to the ruse. But his curiosity stirred. The parts of him that craved power, the calculating whore monger, the scheming money lender, they roused as if waking from a slumber. As Hand of the Queen, the man had manoeuvred himself to a position of incredible strength. And if the Targaryen girl won...

“A seat of your choosing,” he announced. “Highgarden perhaps? The Reach is one of the most prosperous regions in all the realms. A man like you could do well there.”

“Why would I forsake three kingdoms for one?” Petyr marked.

“Well, as I think I mentioned, Queen Daenerys has her dragons. _And_ a far larger army. And now the support of the North. We both know who is more likely to win this war,” he said and it was more than pragmatism that coloured the Imp's tone. It was raw belief. A startling discord in a man like Tyrion Lannister. “And, to sweeten the deal, I will renounce my marriage to the Lady Sansa and declare it as the sham it was. You will be free to wed her and legitimise your child.”

Laid out bare, it was a generous gift: agreeing to annul his marriage to one of the most eligible women in Westeros and hand her to a man he clearly despised. But Tyrion was not an ordinary man who lived on base urges and quick pleasures. The dwarf had his whores and his wine, yes, but he also had his potent mind.

But the Imp was no benevolent master, handing out this boon as a show of good faith. This was a show of power, an open display of dominance. _Here_ , it said, _see how I can move you._

The offer was temptation, a succulent fig, ripened, plump and dangling in front of him. He could only see the branch, the tree and the woods beyond, nothing to indicate that there could be a serpent hidden among the leaves. Would it be unwise to reach out and pluck the fruit?

Tyrion played with edges of his empty goblet, stubby fingers tapping out a rhythm, a tattoo like a beating war drum in a mummer's play of battle. “I have been trying to understand how it would serve you, getting the girl with child. And I am coming up short.” The Imp flicked up his eyes and met his own. “Unless, of course, it was her who played you?” Petyr watched as Tyrion refilled his cup to the brim. “Now that _would_ be a sweet irony,” he said with a smirk. “She is certainly not the same, innocent girl that fled King's Landing. And now I know that she got the better of you...well, I feel oddly proud of our young, red wolf.”

“She is a survivor,” he said more to himself than the man opposite. Yes, he thought, and who made her that way?

Tyrion's rough snort echoed in his cup. He gulped the rich vintage as thought it were a thirsty man's water before he spoke again, “Aren't we all?”

~~~

He returned to his rooms to find her in his bed, curled up on her side and lost to sleep.

It was many minutes before he moved. And he watched. Red locks tumbled across the pillow, loose, free and begging to be touched. Her breath was slow, steady like the ebbing wash that rolled into the harbour below. His fire was low, smouldering ash in the hearth, but a lone candle by the bed lit her face in flickering light.

He perched on the edge of the bed. “Sansa,” he said quietly, brushing a lock of hair back from where it fell over her face.

A deep breath, and then she opened her eyes. It took only a moment for her to blink through cloudy sleep to recognise his face. She smiled. “Petyr...”

“You appear to have stumbled into the wrong bed, my lady,” he teased. “The castle will be abuzz with indecent talk.”

“Oh, hush. Just get in: I'm cold.”

He shed his clothes like used-up skin, and slid in between the sheets and the furs and her warmth. Her scent pervaded his bed and he inhaled the soft, sweetness of lemon soap. He hovered on his side, afraid to touch, until she snaked out her hand behind her and tugged at his under-shirt. Closer, her delicate fingers said, _I want you close_.

Wrapping his arms around her felt like coming home, warmth bloomed in his chest, and he delighted in Sansa's sigh of contentment. He rested a hand on her stomach, stroking gently over the silken fabric.

Time passed, he waited, and his mind stilled. He soaked in luxurious silence, inhaling deeply, swaddling his senses in her presence.

After a while she spoke. “Where have you been?”

He brushed his lips against the exposed skin of her neck. “Speaking to your husband,” he muttered, laying faint fluttering kisses. She said nothing. “He has made me a very interesting offer...” At that she stiffened and turned in his arms to face him. The loss of contact was a physical ache. He brought his palm to settle again on her waist, and she watched him warily. “Highgarden,” he explained. “And your hand.”

“Only the High Septon can annul our marriage, you know that,” she said, a line of concern drawn in her brow.

“True,” he noted, “but any vow made at sword-point is no true vow.” He stroked his fingers along the curve of her hip, then up again, and down, exploring the valley of her waist.

“That law only applies to men,” she rebutted. No bitterness, just fact.

He hummed in agreement, still revelling in the feel of her this close even through her nightdress. “But he was forced as much as you, sweetling,” he said. He met her eyes, shadowed by the sparse light and his own face so close. There was a look there, not unlike adoration, but he must have imagined it.

Then she kissed him.

It was unexpected and hard and passionate. It was gratitude and comfort. It was unlike anything they had ever shared. He was unsure he had never been kissed quite the same before. And without warning, it became something more.

Suddenly heated, he pressed himself against her as her arms wound around and her hands into his hair, tugging him to her. She opened her mouth, parting soft lips and he followed. She was fierce in her wanting, desperate and wild. His fingers grasped at her waist, pulling her close, and still even pressed chest to toe, it was not close enough.

She moaned and bucked her hips into him, into his obvious want. And gods, did he want her.

They made quick work of the flimsy material that only lay in the way of their goal, and every place her skin touched his own felt cleansed and new. He was lost in her.

Her lips were soon pressing hot, burning kisses down his neck, his chest. Her feverish breath caressed his scar, sinking deep into the mangled tissue, the twisted sinew, healing from his pounding heart out. Her tongue laved, wetting his nipple and then pulling back to let the cool absence of her warm mouth pucker the skin. He fisted his hands in her hair, twining his fingers in divine red strands. And still she moved lower.

The furs fell back, exposing them both to the cool air of the room. But it did not matter: he was full of fire.

It was only when he felt her lips ghost over the tip of his manhood, did he break from his frenzied stupor and move to pull her gently back. “Sansa...you don't-”

“Hush,” she said gazing up, elbows propping her up either side of his hips. Her breasts grazed the tops of his legs, tickling the sparse hairs. Her back arched to give him a full view of her behind, pert and pale and smooth as the rest of her skin. His cock twitched. “Hush,” she whispered. “Relax.”

He watched her consider him, the jutting length that must seem so foreign to an inexperienced girl. The whores he used to train handled a man's cock with the bored skill of a carriage driver at his reigns. Able wrists and experienced tongues that could bring any man to completion in mere minutes. But Sansa's naivety, her delicate frown of curiosity, only aroused him more.

She licked her lips. He held his breath. Then she dipped her head and laved him from base to tip, tongue flat and wet and this would be the death of him, he knew it now. A low groan rolled through his chest. 

Tentative at first, she grew bolder, urged on by his gasps and pleas. When she grabbed the base of his cock in her fist and squeezed, air hissed through his teeth and he could not help that his eyes rolled back. When she licked and sucked at his tip he swore aloud, the curse muffled by his groan. When she wrapped her lips around him, bringing him deeper into her mouth he shot upright.

“Sansa!” He grasped her shoulders, pulled her back. “Stop,” he gasped.

She sat up and licked her lips and the sight almost finished him. “Was I-”

“No, no, just- if you don't stop I won't last,” he explained gently, still trying to catch his breath. “Come here.” He grasped her hand and guided her up the bed so that she straddled his stomach, and he could feel her wetness pool on his overheated skin. It was wonderful, obscene, how much he enjoyed her coating him. He reached down to stroke her, fingers teasing between her sex.

Sansa moaned and rocked her hips, and the cleft of her backside slid against his cock still slick from her mouth. He played, tickling, enticing, drawing soft cries from her lips. She writhed in frustration, and tried to move so that he would treat the most sensitive parts of her. Petyr grinned, and relented. How could he deny her anything when he venerated her, his own personal goddess; more splendour than the Seven, shining brighter than the Lord of Light, eternal as the old gods of the North. He pressed his thumb to her centre and stroked a slow rhythm. Her breath caught and her hips lifted, pressing back almost close enough for him to slip inside.

To his surprise, she reached out and gripped him in her small hand, bringing the tip to rub at the tender flesh near her entrance, using him for her own pleasure, while he continued to move his fingers. The feel of her silken folds began to test his resolve anew. She climbed her peak with haste, breath shortening, back stretching, reaching for her own divine ending. The sheen of sweat on her chest glistened in the candlelight. A rosy blush bloomed on her face, spreading down her neck, catching aflame.

She was close, close enough that she sought only sweet completion, other senses dulled, all focused on that one, inexorable point.

As he felt her nub contract, he thrust up into her, burying himself to the hilt in one smooth motion. Sansa cried out and came hard, tight and clenching. Her whole body shuddered in release and he groaned as he felt the rush of wetness soak them both. He gritted his teeth and forced to himself still as she pulsed around him, gasping and mewling.

Sansa fell forward, hair drawing a curtain around her face and braced both hands on either side of his scar. Flushed, heaving for air, beautiful. He gave her only a second before he began to move again, taking a firm hold of her waist. She moaned, low and deep, a blessed tune with notes the spoke of satiation, exhaustion, fulfillment. Her thighs still trembled but he did not relent, bucking upwards, every time jerking his hips hard. 

“Oh-” It was the only word she could muster as he filled her again and again. She began to rock her hips in time with his, trying to gain some friction against his taught muscles, but her limbs shook, her eyes were thick and hazy with pliant lust.

In one movement, he flipped her onto her back, never leaving the blessed place between her legs. She wrapped her thighs around him, to fit chest to chest, bodies both slick with sweat, panting breaths shared in the small space between lips. He leant down, kissed her, slow and deep. She responded languorously - taking from him everything - pressing herself in, past all his defences. If he was not careful she would triumph, invade his being, take root in his soul. And there would be nothing left in there but her. Walls crumbled, soldiers lay down their arms and his heart offered fealty to this illustrious leader.

He started to move again, rocking gently. Sansa gasped into his mouth, and he placed a light kiss on her lips, swollen, plump and reddened from he scratch of his beard. He pulled back just far enough so that he could watch every moment of this making play across her face. Their eyes locked, the last final part of each other meeting as he moved leisurely within her, taking all the time that the world had. For surely nothing else could matter but what happened in this room, in this bed, between her thighs. Between the two of them, together.

He felt her begin to shudder around him and lowered his mouth to her throat, to suck and prise her pleasure from her with his lips and teeth. She whimpered, hips bucking, striving, grasping. Her fingers pressed into his behind, trying to bring him ever closer as she writhed beneath him. “Petyr...” she said over and over and over.

“Sansa,” he whispered along the shell of her ear, “come for me, my love.”

At that she fell apart, sobbing her release and drawing out his own. He groaned as he spilled himself inside her, hips thrusting and the last parts of whatever he was before fell away. He could only pant into her neck and lap the salt from her flushed skin. She tasted better than the finest Arbor gold.

Reluctant but aware of his weight, he moved off, and laid on his side to face her. Only then did he begin to notice the chill in the room, furs bunched at the foot of the bed. He covered them both and nestled in beside her.

Her soft, sleepy smile was so honest, so open, it cracked him clean in two. He had another choice now, one he could never have foreseen. To side with the Dragon and betray the wicked Lioness. He could save her. Save them both. Have all he ever wanted and more besides.

Everything.

It seemed far too good to be true.

By now the bird he had sent back in Winterfell would have reached Cersei's covetous hands. He could see her face, warped with malicious glee, cold, dead eyes alight with fire and madness.

As his eyes began to drift closed, he prayed with sincerity that the gods would grant him a dreamless sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wrote that entire last section listening to [ Tom Odell's 'Concrete' ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnZxWpwvFEk)for anyone who likes a soundtrack with their smut.
> 
>  **PRE-WARNING** for those of you that have asked: the next chapter is the last "happy" chapter. 
> 
> Nothing too terrible happens for a while yet (depending on your definition of terrible) but Chapter 17 is the event horizon, if you will.


	16. That Looks On Tempests

_{let me not to the marriage of true minds, admit impediment}_

The litter listed and rolled as it moved through the streets of White Harbour. The rich curtains, embroidered with images of the sea, tied back to reveal the curious stares of the common folk. The people of the North were smaller in their passions than those in the South, as if cheering a wedding procession would expend far too much energy that would be better used for staving off the cold. Instead they stood in an orderly line, broken on occasion by the peeping heads of small children. His heart pounded in time with the quick feet of the household that carried him.

He watched the Sept of the Snows rise from the houses; a grand building, pale as chalk, with its magnificent dome. The modest procession drew to a stop and the litter was placed down. A sharp rap on the ceiling signalled the readiness of the congregation and Petyr unfolded himself from his seat, making sure to straighten his newly sewn doublet. The doors opened and he was met with a low hum of muttering patience and he could see the hulking mass of Lord Manderly down towards the front and next to him, Tyrion Lannister in a comical tableau.

None of this affair could be describe as lavish. With less than two weeks to prepare, only the essentials had been arranged. Still, there had been bustle and excitement in the New Castle, ladies aflutter with talk of dresses and dancing. Sansa disappeared behind doors of her apartments, firmly closed to him. Some impish whim had taken her, and since that evening a fortnight past, she had not shared his bed. She had said something about making their wedding night a special occasion but he had not entirely heard, instead too focused on keeping his groan of frustration from surfacing. 

As he walked into the sept, a squire appeared at his side to cloak him in the sigil of House Baelish. He felt leaden with the weight of the mockingbird on his back, but found the will to move sluggishly down to the dais. The Septon there was near bent in half, made of only bones and skin, his officiate robes hung from an angular frame like a shroud over a corpse. But his smile stretched across his whole face, beaming at the assembled crowd and warming the frigid chasm of the Seven. 

White Harbour was an anomaly of the North, preferring the canonical trimness of the new gods over the indistinct spirits of old. At what shrine his own ancestors had prayed, Petyr had no clue. Perhaps the god of many faces, like many from Braavos. Perhaps the Lord of Light. Petyr shied from them all, but it made this undertaking today no less intimidating.

The skeletal man grinned at him and Petyr noticed the he had eyes the same colour as the Manderly sigil, a sea writhing before a storm. He clenched one hand in another to still their trembling. The blood had long drained from his face.

“It is usually the maid who wears white,” the Septon wheezed, eyeing him, skin folding in crinkling lines of amusement.

He tried not to glare, but scorn was his last line of defence when faced with uncertainty. The last time he had wed had been for a clear purpose, another paving stone laid into his path to power. Before that, he had only considered marriage to one woman, and like a delicate maid his dreams were intricate fantasies of the day he would turn to see Catelyn Tully gliding down the aisle, a faint blush on her cheeks, hair adorned with riverbank flowers. He had also imagined himself grown to a towering six foot, wearing a doublet that was more emeralds than silk, and somehow having miraculously developed a mane of blonde hair to rival that of Rhaegar Targaryen. Thank the gods they had seen fit to give him perspective in his older age.

A flutter of noise rose around the doors of the Sept. He looked up.

Sansa entered, her gown a deep green with threads of white and grey. As she got closer he made out the pattern: a playful wolf chasing a flock of mockingbirds. And one brave soul on his tiny wings, trying to nip at the ears of the beast with his pointed beak.

He felt flushed and hot in the vast arena. The weight of a hundred gazes pressed in. The breath he drew felt a little too short, but he dug his nails into the soft flesh of his palm and willed the sense of dread to lift. If he could offer just enough resistance for this small time, push back with equal pressure it would soon be done. Soon man and wife.

But  _how,_ how could he be this husband, this father, that Sansa wanted so badly? To be satisfied with only their own lot. Of course, that was once his only aspiration. Now, the concept was strange and obscure as if sunk in unfathomable depths. If it were still possible to dredge it out, would it not now be disfigured from salty rot? Was he too not a hollow shell of the noble man she used to dream of? If, that was, Sansa still dreamed of such things at all.

There were still embers of the girl in there, hidden underneath cast iron but still smouldering. Still heated. Still enough to burn a man if he were not careful. This woman was a weapon; smithed from the moment he had seen her, hilt shaped like Lannister gold and embedded with finery. But unfinished. And tarnished. He liked to think he could be the one to edge her blade, return her to her former glory.

But he was no warrior. He was no soldier. Some would say he was barely a man. And yet, there was a primal, visceral feeling that had settled low in his gut since the day he had discovered that Sansa carried his child. It terrified him, that he would have so little control over his own mind, his own body. What would he now compromise to see them both safe from harm? If he were capable of heinous acts before, what would this new desperation bring? He knew he could be only what he was. Though he thought he could be a better warrior than her father if he could keep his head and protect them.

The slight swell of her belly pressed against the flow of the cloth, more noticeable now even in the brief weeks they had been in the city. It soothed him, to know that his child grew within her; a safe harbour within his mother until he was ready to set sail into this world. Petyr hoped there would be enough time to teach his son to navigate those treacherous waters. He hoped there would be enough time for them both. 

As she approached the dais, Sansa grasped his hand and blushed like the maiden she used to be. He could see it then, how they could have met if only he had been a better man. Perhaps a noble knight like the stories? Lower born for certain, but his righteous deeds and honour would win her to him. To joust for her and name his Lady the queen of love and beauty. To whisper confessions of virtuous love in scant captured moments – feasts, perhaps, or tourneys – and promise themselves. How her heart would flutter when he stood just a tad too close for propriety.  How she would have begged her father, the good Lord Eddard, to gift her the choice of her own husband. And of course, with that fatherly smile he would relent, with his love for his daughter, he would relent… 

Until they were old, until his back bent in two and his skin withered like the Septon before them. Until she shuffled and groaned about the grinding of her hips, shooing the grandchildren out into the courtyard to play. Until they would tease each other, he the ancient man, she the crone. And the tilt of her mouth would be thinner, the lines on her face deeper and yet she would be just as beautiful as this day…

Weak. He was weak. Too many unknowns stood between here and then. Cersei would fall, if not from the Dragon Queen, then eventually under the weight of her own hubris. The threat from the North seemed more like a force of nature... and then there were those from over the Narrow Sea whose thoughts may soon turn to Westeros. The shadows moved and shifted, the darkness revealing nothing but a vague outline of their features. He had more questions now than answers. More roads to travel but no map to guide him. And every unfamiliar turn was the risk that beyond the bend those cloaked strangers lingered.

The septon spoke, crinkled voice echoing in the presence of the Seven. “Look upon one another and say the words.”

"Father, Smith, Warrior, Mother, Maiden, Crone, Stranger, I am hers and she is mine from this day until the end of my days.”

 

_{it is an ever-fixed mark}_

There she stood, his Lady Wife.

To crows and good-humoured jeers of dismay, they had refused the bedding, choosing instead to walk arm in arm from the Merman’s Court. The din followed them up into the tower, silencing only as the latch of the chamber door clicked into place. 

Petyr was not sure what to do. He wanted to stop and savour this point in time, try and bottle it like a perfumer would try to capture the finest scents. At the same time, the thrumming in his veins and the pounding of his blood willed his body to consume the woman before him. His wife.  _His_.

Sansa smiled, wide and genuine, and so pure that for a moment he entertained the thought that this was it: this was the moment she had healed.

It took three steps to reach her and a heartbeat to bring his hand up to where her own would be drumming against her chest. He knew he must touch her. He ran a finger over the delicate stitching, the birds that flocked and spread upwards and onwards over her shoulders. “You made this?”

“I did.”

“It’s…” he traced the one sole bird, the one that cheekily nipped at the wolf’s ears as if provoking a playmate and not a predator. Teasing. Is that how she saw him? Only a nuisance, a little mischief to be tolerated with resigned patience? He supposed she could wound him deeper than any other if she chose, take him in her teeth and bite down to crush the life from him. She had already shown her ability to fool him. She must know how close she held him. “It’s apt,” he said. Her eyes crinkled and it pleased him to be the cause.

Their gaze locked in the same way they had kept meeting at the feast, over the cups, the wine and the roasted mutton. Both impatient to steal away from the festivities and be alone. Together. His hand rose and fell as her breath quickened. Even through the thick material of the dress, he could feel her heat burning into his palm, igniting his blood like kindling.

Her own pale hand came up to remove the pin at his throat, then went south. There was a look of intense concentration on her face. Her fingers moved with a singular goal, unbuttoning his doublet working down, down. He closed his eyes and let her do as she willed.

“I want you to show me…” she said, voice so quiet it was nearly a whisper, as her fingers slipped in, “…show me what it’s like to have a husband who cares for me. Who wants me as much as I want him….” her thumb brushed a nipple through his silk undershirt, letting the skin pucker, before skimming down his ribs, “…who loves me.”

His eyes flew open.

Did he love her? It was what her brother Bran had asked, the boy with the eyes of the old gods. He had evaded the question, and answered only with what he knew to be true. He cared for her, certainly. Undoubtedly. At first, as Cat’s daughter, as a chance to have all that he had lost all over again. He had cared for her maiden’s smile, the way she blushed and stammered in her uncertainty. He had cared that she was unharmed – though that sentiment was rooted far more in how much of a shame it would be if Joffrey were to spoil that beautiful face. The face that was so much like her mother’s.

Snatching her away to the Vale - yes, somewhere around there, when he had fished his precious Tully girl from the sea – signalled the start of a deeper, heavier weight of emotion. When her eyes sparked blue in the light. When she repeated his name with the curve of her lips. When he had been close enough to draw the scent of her into his starved lungs.

He had still never been able to place this suffocating feeling in his chest, the way his skin felt raw when she stood near. The way she could expose him.

His doublet and his undershirt were off, crumpled on the floor. If she cared that he was silent, she did not show it. Instead she had lowered her lips to his chest, tracing his scar with soft presses and gentle licks.

Whenever they were unclothed she always fixated on that terrible line bisecting his chest. The jagged mark a reminder believing in goodness an honour was the quickest and surest way to die in this world. She had her own scars, those that peppered her pale skin, another victim of the ways in which innocence can maim. The way the unknown, the hidden, shadowed things, are of a greater danger than the ones you can see when they raise their sword.

Her pain went deep, deeper even than his own. Her suffering was not just from the cuts in her flesh, long-healed now and turning silver. The wounds on her soul, they would bleed in her forever. What she asked of him now, was that her balm to soothe the sting? Sometimes her gaze would turn so hard it would put castle walls to shame, and he felt that bite of guilt that only ever sunk its teeth when he thought of her. Sometimes she would look so overcome with sadness that the room would turn paler in the presence of her sorrow, and then she would notice his stare and the mask would snap back into place.

And yet sometimes he saw something like love in those eyes.

He lowered his mouth to hers. He did not know if he loved her –  _could_  ever love anyone again – but he could certainly try.

 

_{love is not time’s fool}_

A storm threatened the horizon. Smoking clouds darkening the sea. The air smelled like a promise of heavy gales and piercing rain that would not relent for days. The gods of winter were restless.

The sailors readied the cogs as fast as men were able. They were to sail on  _Wyman’s Wrath_ , the most luxurious ship in Lord Manderly’s fleet, accompanied by their own guard and what remained of Tyrion Lannister’s men.

The over-large Lord stood at the window in his solar, looking out across the bay, a guardian of this gleaming city. Already, shutters were closing, stalls and carts were packed away, battened down. Time to go to ground and wait out the fury of the seas. “If you do not sail soon, you could be trapped in this port for weeks, months,” Manderly was saying. “When winter comes to White Harbour it does so with fits and starts. Best to ride ahead of the storm.” 

Sansa glanced at him and he knew what she thought, that perhaps it would not be such a bad idea to stay here for now in this sanctuary for their wedded bliss. Awful things would happen outside these walls. This place had been their sheltered port from the perils that approached.

“We can be ready to travel within the hour,” he replied and Manderly tilted his head in acknowledgement.

“It has been an honour, Lord Baelish.” Before Petyr could protest, the fat lord had dragged him into an embrace. The air left him with a wheeze. “You take care of that girl or I’ll gut you myself,” he muttered in his ear at a fraction of his usual volume.

Petyr could only nod as he moved away.

At once, Manderly was joyful again, broad face beaming as he pulled Sansa into an equally breathlss hug. “My Lady," he boomed, "would you take a turn in the gardens with me one last time? The trees are bare and the flowers are dead and I wish to gaze upon something beautiful.” 

Sansa only glanced at him before nodding her assent and took Lord Manderly by his proffered arm. Petyr watched them walk away, the large man's roaring laugh echoing down the hall long after they had wandered from sight.

He decided to make a use of himself and took off down to the castle's yard. There he found Tyrion Lannister readying to move his remaining guard that were now clothed in furs to stave off the frost. 

It had become clear in the past fortnight that the man was changed, and it wasn’t just the addition of a very un-Lannister-like thick brown beard. The black humour that often accompanied the Imp had turned a shade darker, the cavalier attitude to whores and wines and impropriety muted in melancholy.

"Lord Baelish," Tyrion greeted. "So good of you and your new wife to emerge. We were beginning to grow concerned that the both of you may starve to death."

Petyr sent him a quick look of warning, if only to cover the smugness that threatened his face. "A man cannot starve in two days."

"Yes, but he may over-exert himself. Especially if he is not as young as he once was."

He could not help it now, the smirk rose and Tyrion waggled a lascivious brow in response.

Servants and household guard scuttled around the yard. The wind flapped the tails of the mermen that hung from the walls.

“I shall send word, Lord Baelish. The queen may have her uses for a man like you,” he smiled, a whim taking him. “And wouldn’t that be a small council for the history books: a dwarf, a eunuch and a brothel keep.”

“ _Former_  brothel keep," he corrected. "I have nothing left in King’s Landing but some savaged rooms, thanks to your sister.”

“Ah yes, you are now Lord husband and soon to be father. I never thought I would see the day,” he mused. “But surely still a man who has a gift for finance?”

Petyr looked down at him, trying to puzzle out the implication in his words. “...If the Queen wishes, we can sail straight on to Dorne." 

“No,” Tyrion said and waved away the thought, “right now that wife of yours should be behind castle walls. Her time will come sooner than you think. And the camp of an invading army is no place for a pregnant woman.”

Petyr found himself relieved. Every day of travel was another day their party was exposed, and the seas of Westeros were dangerous even without the unseen threat of Ironborn raiders. When they arrived at the Gates of the Moon, enveloped by the safety of the Vale and the soldiers that guarded it, only then would he allow himself to relax his vigilance.

“Come,” Tyrion said, gesturing to Manderly’s vast litter, “travel with me to the harbour.”

He looked back at the castle. “I should…” he began with hesitation.

“Do not worry, you shall not set sail without her.” The Imp smirked and ducked inside.

Petyr was not sure why he was loathe to leave when he knew fine well Sansa would be accompanied by Brienne and a party of his own Knights of the Vale to the docks. He reasoned it must be spending all of their time in only each other’s presence since the wedding, entwined, learning what it was to be husband and wife. The absence of her left a chill that had nothing to do with the rising winds.

With a sigh, he followed Tyrion into the litter and set himself across from the smaller man, glad of the extra room for his legs. As the box was hoisted, the dwarf’s amiable air vanished, replaced with frank appraisement. “Varys seems to think you’re after the Iron throne,” he said with no preamble.

Petyr had assumed there would be more to the both of them being alone than just a shared jaunt down to the waiting boats, so he simply raised a brow. “You disagree?” 

“I never took you for a stupid man,” he said. “And the gods know only a fool would want to be the one sat on it, and not the one behind it. No, I thought perhaps it was revenge you were after, on all those higher lords and ladies who have belittled you over the years. A sweet fantasy I sometimes entertain myself.” Tyrion turned his face to the streets of White Harbour, watching the scenes change as the litter descended towards the bay. “Or, perhaps power. Control? Wealth?”

“Why not all four?” he quipped.

“Because eventually one would have to give for the other or a man will fall at the feet of his own greed,” he explained. “You still stand therefore you must know the necessity of compromise.”

“So you _do_ know what I am after?”

“I think…” he drawled, eyes flicking back to Petyr, “that you have a list of the things you want as tall as the day is long. And I think that the Lady Sansa features highly on that list. Though I do wonder…does she place higher than your own neck?” He shrugged as if the death of the woman was of no concern to him. “I suppose until your life is in imminent danger, we will never know will we?”

Petyr steeled himself. “No, I suppose we won’t,” he said.

Tyrion seemed amused by his response, and turned back to gazing at the town as it passed by. Petyr watched as his expression turned to something heavier; a tempestuous look that rivalled the gathering darkness where the sky met the sea.

“For all my life, time seemed to move at the same sedate pace. Ticking by, one second at a time, each the same as the last and the same as the one next. Now it feels as though time is restless, as keen to get this great game over with. Bored with the tedium of all this uncertainty. Jaime used to be very much like that when we would play cyvasse as children: no appreciation for the skill, the patience required to be a truly great player of the game." He blinked, clearing the memory like sleep from his green eyes. "Everything keeps shifting, changing so quickly...and the time keeps rushing by.

Have you felt it?”

In truth he had, the description smoothing an edge grazing a tender spot in his gut. But he had no wish to indulge the maudlin dwarf. “Why would I concern myself with something I cannot control?”

“A pragmatic approach,” Tyrion conceded. “Is that why you murdered my nephew? Because it was ‘practical’.”

Petyr was intensely glad he had raised his walls. He kept still, said nothing. 

“Don’t worry. As I said, I am a lot cleverer than most and has taken me until these past few weeks to fit the pieces together.”

“Yes, do tell me how I accomplished the King’s assassination from my seat in the Vale…” He kept his tone light, wry. The litter rocked as they descended a steep section of the town.

“Well," Tyrion said as if speaking to a slow child, "obviously you had help. My gold would be on that shrewd old crone Olenna. The Queen of Thorns has enough sharpness to take down a dozen men with her words alone.”

Petyr smirked despite himself and pointed out, “If it was her then she could have worked alone. Joffrey was clearly a threat to the safety of her precious granddaughter.”

“I agree. And I entertained the idea. I even thought that perhaps my own father may have had a hand in it. He was certainly capable of it..." The Imp drifted off again and he could only wait for the man to draw his thoughts back together. He wondered if the man felt guilt over Lord Tywin's passing, or if it had been the inevitable culmination of a lifetime of disparagement and scorn. Perhaps it had felt like relief. "But," Tyrion spoke again after a short while, "the answer was right in front of me the whole time. Or...should I say, slightly to my left...

"Sansa fled in the chaos," he expanded, "and for the longest time I could not figure out how the girl had managed to disappear so completely. She couldn’t possibly have known the opportunity would be there, on that very day. _Someone_ must have helped her. It took a few days for anyone to notice that Ser Dontos the Fool was also gone, and by that time his boat and his body had washed up along the shore..." Tyrion's eyes ran his length, and he refused to shift. "Then I saw her here…with _you_ …and I saw the way you look at her. And then I knew." He smiled, slow and almost sinister. "You killed a King for her.”

The litter came to a stop, and they were dropped with a heavy hand. The jolt was enough to shake the unnerving look from the dwarf's face.  

“Safe travels, Lord Baelish. I hope to hear from you soon. And give the Lady my best. I shall wait with baited breath for the birth announcement," he said with courtesy, and waddled off across the dock to his own boat.

It took him a minute, maybe ten, before he rose from the litter and walked up the gangway to the ship. Knowing Lord Manderly, he was sure it must be a majestic thing, but he did not see a single plank or mast or sail as he made his way to the prow to watch the seas move.

The waves rose and fell and the boat bobbed with them. He willed his legs to mould to the rhythm and spare him the pervasive sickness that came upon those who were not attuned to open water. Beyond the bay, the sky was a viscous grey, clouds great with threat.

He closed his eyes to better feel the salted air sting his skin and twist his cloak about him. He did not notice when she moved up behind him. And it was only when she slipped her hand in his that he blinked and turned his head to see her face, nose reddened in the cold.

All too quickly the sails filled with the whipping wind. Together they watched their haven White Harbour fade from view.

 

_{until the edge of doom}_

_The ground moved beneath his feet, soil and roots upheaved as if the earth itself breathed. They were trying to run. Her hand clasped tight in his, he dragged her, pulled her with him. Cracks opened in their path, as if the world was breaking apart at the seams. The mountain rasped heaving, cackling spurts of madness and laughter. Roaring, screaming fire burned at his back, singing his skin and the sky turned green. Heat, unlike any other. The air sucked from his lungs before he could shout. And he held her._

As his eyes opened, it took him a long moment to regain his bearings. He was on the  _Wyman’s Wrath_ … of course. Heading to Gulltown. With his new wife.

The boat rocked, tilting the lanterns over his head. He watched how the flame would sway with the sea, fire moving by the grace of water. The feet of the night crew moved overhead, men of the sea, guided by starlight.

Somewhere up there in the sky, there were dragons too. Winged beasts come from the other side of the world, with bellies full of fire, casting a shadow of fear over the land below. Creatures of a lost civilization, the last fragments of which drifted west to conquer anew. Had the gods saw fit to punish the people of Old Valyria? As a culture grown arrogant in their advanced knowledge and industry…perhaps creation cannot abide a rival. The pious and scholarly alike failed to agree on what sparked The Doom.

Divine intervention or no, one fact was certain: the Valyrians were no more, aside from those scant few who came to change the history of this land. The Andals had stood no chance, being only men. The Targaryens were men too, but as the Imp had astutely said, men with  _dragons_. Unless Cersei Lannister was hiding her own fiery beasts underneath King’s Landing, then this was a battle that would only go the one way.

And so the tale would circle again, repeating a pattern woven into a tapestry over and over by unseen hands. Their fates intertwined like threads, some taught, some loose, some fraying at the edges.

When the sea boiled like thin soup. When the mountains dissolved into ash. When the rain turned to spitting embers and fell on the world as if it were ended. Or when monsters made of death fell upon them from the North. A doom of ice this time, not fire, but a doom all the same.

It was come again, a punishment for their conceit.

There had been a point, he was sure, not too long ago when he had been certain of the world and what lay in it. A point of utter confidence in his own ability to spin order out of a place where most could only see chaos. Dragons, White Walkers, wargs and greenseers; these were familiar words to him in the same way he was aware of the necessity of needles in clothes-making, but would never have use of them himself. They were stories, fed to children at the hearth in the hush of the evening, eyes wide and keen and eager.

And childlike he lay, helpless and scared of what lay in the dark corners of this world that he could not see. The wonder long left, fallen away to leave nothing but fear of what was to come. A man with no shield for his family but his arms and no defence against catastrophe but his wits.

No, he vowed. He would savour this moment, dwell on nothing but the warmth of her back against his chest. The tickling of her hair as he buried his nose in her neck. The rise and fall, rise and fall, of her breathing. The soft swell of her belly underneath his newly ringed hand. The end could wait. He would make it wait.

Water lapped at the hull. Wood creaked and groaned. The wind wailed its incessant song of harrowing winter.

His wife and child slept on. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _‘If this be error, and upon me prov’d_  
>  _I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d'_  
>  Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare.  
> The Original ‘Anyone Can Die’ Author
> 
> It’s a cliché. But it’s my favourite. I would marry that sonnet, have babies with that sonnet, argue over who’s turn it is to do the dishes with that sonnet.  
> Bonus: [Patrick Stewart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwkXCVXj80) doing it justice.
> 
> So, two things:  
> 1) The end of the next Chapter is where things change. I’ve warned you. Like, a lot.  
> 2) I am back to school now after a long, heady summer of writing. I am knackered because kids for some reason do not understand "easing back into it". So updates are going to slow. I am aiming for one chapter a week once everything settles down and I’m back into my routine. But don't hold me to that.


	17. Eye of the Storm

Sansa was pretending to be asleep but her bare arse wriggled against him and she was doing a poor job of keeping the smirk from her face.

He held himself still, breathing smoothly, doing everything to convey slumber short of snoring in in her ear. But his body was betraying him. The press of her rear grew more insistent, and his clever, wanton lady arched her back so that his cock slipped into the space between her cheeks.

In the two weeks they had been at sea since becoming man and wife, he had woken every morning wrapped around her pliant body. Arms and legs entwined, chest pressed close to her spine. Sansa in turn liked to clutch his hands in hers and settle their woven fingers in the space below her breasts, an arch of protection over their unborn child. The storm at their backs had quelled into a peaceful burr.

The open seas seemed to make her insatiable, the toll of those earlier days left far behind in the grand cog’s wake. And this was nothing like before. Under the furs in the cold of Winterfell when their passions were fuelled by something black and damaging, then they had clawed at each other, devoured mutual ill-intent like beasts feasting on rotten flesh. He had craved her. She had used him.

This, here, aboard the _Wyman’s Wrath_ , was like emerging from that darkness and feeling the warmth of the sun; a light so bright, a world so full of colour that it had taken his senses time to adjust to the flood of stimulation. It was a newer, better state of being. Falling together again and again, learning each other’s pleasures not to control or manipulate but to heighten and nurture.

Even when they weren’t abed he loved to watch her in repose, reading a book or working at her stitches, relishing the novel rush of awe he felt when her fingers would stray to the small roundness of her belly. 

 “You’re not asleep,” she whispered and edged back into him further, a perfect pressure on his cock. He barely managed to stifle his groan but his breath hitched and he knew he had been caught out. Still, he maintained the charade keeping his eyes tight shut and his mouth flat. Sansa responded with a huffy sigh worthy of a spoilt highborn girl and he fought with the edges of a smirk. “Fine,” she said, as though admitting defeat. She rolled away from his warm cosset and he felt bereft.

His eyes flew open at the sudden frigid draft and a far from masculine cry escaped his lips. His tormentor perched on her heels at the foot of the bed, wearing nothing but her wicked smile and clutching the furs and sheets to her breast.

“See,” she said knowingly.

Petyr narrowed his eyes and the coy look dropped from her face. Her lips parted and he revelled in the shudder of desire that rolled through her shoulders. For a moment they both stared, her eyes darting to his straining manhood with interest.

Feeling very much like some carnal predator stalking the shadowy jungles of Sothyros, he lunged forward and grabbed her, twisting and trapping his prey underneath his full weight. She squealed and writhed – half-shock, half-laughter - clawing ineffectually at his upper arms, drawing her soft pads along his spine.

“Stop,” she gasped as he bit into her neck with a growl. “Stop! I yield!”

But he was a beast, and beasts did not know the meaning of soft human concepts like mercy. He nipped harder and Sansa yelped, bucking her hips up under where he pinned her to the bed. His cock throbbed, twitching against her heat. He began to draw his mouth down the pale line of her throat, scratching his claim with blunt teeth and she moaned aloud.

With another voracious grunt, he grabbed her hips and yanked them both to the foot of the bed. Slipping off the end and kneeling on the cold wood of the deck he drew her legs roughly up around his shoulders and shoved his nose into her cunt like a hound sniffing out a fated quarry's scent.

Sansa moan was half swallowed by her gulp of air as he plunged his tongue into her warmth. He was reminded of the very first time he had put his mouth on her, when she was a barely-grown shell of this woman displayed before him, a despoiled version of the girl he had left behind. 

He replaced his lips with two pumping, curling fingers and brought his tongue to her nub, lapping and suckling around the sensitive spot the way he knew would chase her over the edge. Sansa keened and her hips rose. She was muttering words like ‘yes’ and ‘gods’ and ‘Petyr’ all strung together like exquisite jewels on a golden chain. He hummed his approval of her lustful noises against her sopping flesh, she gasped and her head shot up, eyes meeting his over the curls on her mound. A blush stole across her chest and up her neck at the sight of his face buried in her sex and her blue eyes darkened. She whispered what could have been a curse; dirty, sinful letters falling from plump, red lips.

He wanted her to be louder. He wanted every soldier, sailor and pot-boy on the deck to be able to hear his Lady wife screaming his name, shouting insensible expletives at the ends of his mouth, his fingers, his cock. He wanted all of Westeros to know she was _his_.

Her thighs began to quiver around his ears, clenching tight as she came. She soaked his fingers, still buried to the hilt in her, the spasms reverberating down his hand and straight to his groin. She was panting, moaning, but it was not enough.

He fought the urge to throw her ankles behind her ears and pound his cock her into her until he found his own satisfaction and instead renewed his ministrations on her quim. This time he was delicate, teasing at the edges of her folds, focusing on the space between her nub and her opening, where she would be just sensitive enough. Just heightened enough.

Sansa’s head fell back, her back arching, legs still trembling as he worked delicately against the blood-rich flesh. He could still feel her walls flutter against his fingers, so he gave a tentative press upwards, massaging the spongy tissue. She cried out and the sound shot straight to his cock. He rutted into the furs that hung over the side of the bed to try and relieve some of his own pressure.

He worked with more aggression on that spot inside her, until she was no longer calling words but just noises, hitching and writhing, grasping at the well-used bed. He pulled back so that he could watch.

“That’s it, my love,” he encouraged, voice raw with lust as he wrought her pleasure out.

“Oh, gods. Petyr-“ she cried as she shuddered, hitting her peak.

She used his name, and like every time the word fell from her lips he knew he was done. He removed his fingers and moved up her body unhurried as she panted and shivered out, licking the sweat from her rounded stomach stopping to place a kiss over where their son grew inside her, then between her heaving chest, the expanse of her neck. All he wanted to do was taste her, could her live off of her alone, he would never need, nor want to eat again.

Eventually he brought his face level with hers, resting gently between her legs. She was flushed and glorious, her eyes hazy and lax. He kissed her.

It was gentle at first, languorous in the way that they both could now share each other without expectation. Her lips were comfort, home. He closed his eyes and sank into her with ease. For a moment he stilled, just savouring, hoping as he sunk in that this would not be the last.

Then her tongue darted out to lick her own essence off of his chin, his nose, and the savage drive to just _have_ her, take her, rose unbidden. Reaching down, he hitched her leg about his waist and thrust deep. Sansa cried out, and lifted her hips to meet his own

He sank his teeth once again into the soft skin of her neck. He wanted to mark her, let the world see the evidence of _him_ on _her_. Petyr ‘Littlefinger’ Baelish, a man barely worthy of his Lordly title, enjoying the daughter of the noble Lord Eddard Stark. Not just a marriage of convenience, or alliance, but one of such utter obvious carnality that even the most pious highborn men would feel their cocks stir to think on it.

It was rough and desperate, and closer to the kind of fucking that had spurred them back at Winterfell. Two people who thought they could only feel resentment, tearing gratification from each other’s bodies, railing against their demons of guilt and hate and fear. But even as he sunk into her, even as she scratched and at his back, even as the bed creaked and groaned beneath their coupling with more than just the rolling of the boat, he knew that when they were spent, she would not fly from his arms and he would not push her away.

He was close now. Maintaining his pace, he brought his finger once again to her sex, finding her centre and kneading the hardened flesh as he thrust and thrust and thrust. Sansa moaned, long and loud, too spent to fit her mouth to words.

“My Lady wife,” he panted, licking the shell of her ear as he spoke, “My love….”

A shudder in her thighs spread to her whole body and he pinned her with his hips as she came, shouting what could only be his name over and over. He followed a fraction later, spilling himself into her, begging her name into the crook of her shoulder, the world blacking out to nothing but the points at which they joined.

Her breathing began to settle, and he eased away, slumping to her side but never letting any more of him part from her than he could allow.

“I should tease you more often,” she whispered into the slick skin of his neck.

He groaned, his limp cock stirring again but exhaustion won the battle against his libido. “Not too often, sweetling,” he said. “I am not as young as you.”

She hummed but said nothing, only settling herself further into him. He began to drift on the ebbs of the waves.

“Tell me…” she said, words slurring as she fought sleep. “Tell me what will happen when we get to Gulltown.”

It had become a ritual. Every day she would ask this, plead like a child for a story and everyday he would add a little more, adorning with fits of colourful embellishment like a royal seamstress.

“Well, we shall stay the night in the finest inn. Just you and me in the softest feather bed and a roaring fire. I shall arrange for the best midwife in the Vale-

 “-kind and patient-“

 “-yes, kind and patient. And perhaps comely…” he trailed off, making a show of thinking on this imaginary woman. Sansa pinched him hard in the ribs. “…the ugliest, kindest, most patient midwife in the Seven Kingdoms.

 “Then we shall take a carriage to the Gates of the Moon, a few days ride, and there be greeted by all the old household and of course the young Lord Robin. You should see how he’s grown, Sansa. Nearly a man now. He will be overjoyed to see you. And you can be yourself, the Lady Sansa Baelish-“

 “…Lord Petyr Stark…” she muttered into his chest and he smirked.

 “Oh no, then I would have to come over all honourable and dour. Is that what you wish? A Lord husband that cannot smile for fear his face will crack?”

 “You don’t smile anyway. You look smug,” she pointed out.

 “I do?”

She raised her head a little so that she could look at him. “Yes.” He pulled his lips back and bared his teeth in a mockery of a grin and she laughed. He played the clown for her, a silly fool. In these moments, he indulged himself.

_And we shall have the finest rooms, with the finest nursery and all the finest things. And the war will end and winter will end and the children will play in the long grass of summer, never having known what this world is truly capable of, never seeing what you and I have seen. And we will happy. Really, truly happy._

“He’s awake…” she said, a yawn distorting her words as she stretched like a cat basking in sun beams. He raised a brow in question so she elaborated. “I wasn’t sure at first…but now…” Her eyes lowered, lashes falling along the paleness of her cheek. For a moment she said nothing. Then she looked up and he plummeted.  “Here.” Sansa moved his hand to a spot lower on her stomach. Her skin was silken beneath his fingertips and her palm pressed down, insistent, eager. “Do you feel it?” Her exhilaration came from the inside out, a warm glow of joyous innocence and his chest clenched at every rapturous little gasp she gave as she felt their son move inside her.

He smiled at her. But he couldn’t feel anything at all.

~~~

He emerged into air that was cold but motionless, as if the wind had blown itself out. It was a pleasant respite from the heaving and howling of the storms railing against them night and day. Petyr dragged the fresh, clean wind into his lungs, bellowing the warm furnace of contentment that sat beneath his ribcage.

The waters around the coast were infested with Ironborn raiders, spotted as far north as Runestone, picking off straggling ships. Twenty-five strong, this fleet would not be easy prey but the Captains had decided to navigate by daylight, stars and wizened sea-gut rather than risk an attack. _Wyman’s Wrath_ sat on the starboard flank, looking east over the patchwork of dragons, krakens and mermen. It was quite a sight when the sun rose.

His small complement of Vale men lolled in a corner, drinking ale and playing cards, while the ship rocked like a gentle crib soothing a babe to sleep.

Petyr nodded to the Captain as he approached the prow, hunkered over a Cyvasse board, a crease marring his heavy brow. Tybourne inclined his bald, weathered head then darted bloodshot eyes back to the game. The cabin boy opposite was hung somewhere between smug and terrified.

He found his spot occupied by one of the older members of the crew; a brackish man called Haar, with skin made of leather and teeth stained blood-red. He stood now leaning his full weight and gangling height on the forward bulwark, chewing and sucking at his ever-present sourleaf.

“M’lord,” he said as Petyr approached, more a reflex than a sign of respect, for the man did not turn around. His eyes were fixed instead on the water.

“The weather has improved,” Petyr remarked. Apparently he made pleasant conversation as an unburdened man.

Haar grunted and spat a crimson glob into the sea. “We’ll be nearing your end then, I reckon.”

“The Fingers?” he asked, before he realised he could have also said The Vale. Riverrun. Kings Landing.

“Aye, those stick, thin dribbles of rock they named land,” he wheezed and turned his back on the sea, eyes crinkled. “You’ll call it home as much as I never did, I s’pose. May as well come from nowhere.” Haar’s skeletal hand shook as he drew a new roll of sourleaf from his jerkin and stuffed it in his discoloured mouth. He chewed for a moment, watching Petyr with a steady gaze. “Met your father once,” he said. “Your grandfather too.”

He had not thought on his father in a long time. He had not thought of his grandfather - the original Lord of that decrepit estate - in even longer. They were strange men, as foreign to him now as those that came from across the breadth of Essos, beyond the known world. He had never known his father’s father; he was the hedge knight who claimed the Head of the Braavosi Titan as his sigil, still proud of his heritage as an outsider. Petyr had only heard stories of bravery and his unerring skill at swordplay. ‘He moved as though he were made of water,' his father would say to the small child with the big, green eyes who wished that someday he too would be able to dance like his grandfather.

“Well…” the man blinked his rheumy eyes, “nowt like you, m’lord. Rough and ready as they come. Happy with their lot.”

Yes, happy perhaps, but look at where it had left their heir. A thin, poor boy, with nothing to his name, no station, no prospects but a dull, wet spit of land.

Haar paid his musings no mind. “Way I see it, doesn’t much matter where a man comes from. I’s all shite; Lords and their words, always hiding behind those bloody sigils.” He spat again. “I ‘av never seen me a Stark with a bushy tail and snout. Never seen a Lannister with claws.  And those Greyjoys are made just as much of flesh and blood as you and me when you cut them open, not a scrap of iron in sight.” Haar paused again and twisted his bones to face the sea as though compelled. He cocked his head. “You hear that?”

All Petyr could hear was the sound of waves lapping lightly against the hull of the ship. Soft strokes. Tranquil air. He could feel nothing but the bite of the season.

Haar chewed for a moment on his red leaves, appraising the water like a cook watches a stew near to boiling over. “It’s hunger,” he muttered.  “Tha’s the sound the sea makes when it’s ready to swallow you whole.”

~~~

When it came, it came from nowhere.

The rain whipped at his face, stinging needles of salt. The waves cared nothing for the height of the deck, bathing all in frozen, frothing waters. Sailors tethered themselves to _Wyman’s Wrath_ with coils of sodden rope. An exercise as futile as tying oneself to a scrap of parchment and expecting it to weigh you down in a gale. Any sightline with the rest of the fleet had been lost as the darkness descended. Occasionally, a bolt of lightning would illuminate the broiling seas allowing them to glimpse the silhouette of a sail, or specks of something like corpses floating on the surface. His own men were shedding their armour, throwing the useless metal into a heap at the base of the crew’s cabin stairs. What use was plate against elements that could wreck an entire armada.

“Get below!” Tybourne yelled, staggering towards him and barely audible over the wind. The larger man grabbed Petyr by the arm and shoved him down the steps.

He opened the door to find the small cabin boy and Sansa snuffing candles and blowing out lamps both stumbling with the bucking of the deck. Brienne loomed in the corner, face turned to stare out a porthole that revealed only darkness.

“My Lady Brienne,” he said and the woman turned. She was as pale as ever, staunch as ever but she did not seem frightened. Instead, there was only still calm, her features more at ease than he had ever seen them – the frequent line between her brow now smooth, revealing her true youthfulness. “You should remove your armour.”

The corner of her wide mouth twitch upwards. “If the storm overcomes us, it will not matter whether or not we can swim. The weight of my armour will make for a quicker death.”

“We could be near land," he pointed out.

“Not near enough,” she said with certainty. “When I was a girl, back on Tarth, I loved to watch the way the seas would light up and the thunder would follow, like the roar of some great beast come to be slayed by a gallant knight. I would sit by the window and close my eyes, listen to the rain as it thundered on the roof.” She paused and a small smile played at her lips. He did not know why she felt the need now, of all times, to confide. Why she would speak to him and not the Lady busying herself across the room. Perhaps this was a way for the taciturn woman to lay a truce? “I remember my maid,” she continued, looking once again out the small, rounded glass, “a woman fully-grown. And she would whimper and cry like a babe if the rumbling got too loud. I thought she was silly. I thought it sounded very much like the clashes of steel in the yard just over and over as if it were a thousand men practicing their turns. I thought: _this must be the noise of war._ It excited me. Even then I wanted to fight…” Her face fell grave, the line on her brow reappeared. “But war sounds very different. This, at least, still brings me peace.”

He understood. As a boy, he too had been fascinated by the infrequent storms that would visit the Fingers, drifting diluted off the narrow sea. Petyr hated the rain, he hated the wet and he hated the dull, sleeping sky that weighed over those meagre lands like a threadbare sheet. When the heavens came alive, yawning and groaning, pricking at his skin and pulling the hairs upright, the boy he had been would run to the windows of their small keep. His father had always pulled him back. ‘Away from the window,’ he would say, in his gruff, calm way. ‘Let us watch from a safe distance.’

The ship reeled, a swell of the sea throwing all the unsecured contents of the birth sideways, crashing to the floor. Brienne was braced well at her perch but Petyr stumbled, then caught himself against the wall. Immediately he searched for Sansa, who had been caught by the sturdier legs of the cabin boy.

“Petyr,” she said and reached for him. She only wanted his hand for support, for comfort, but he needed her closer. He pulled her into his arms.

Tybourne stumbled into the berth, doublet dripping on the deck like he had just taken a swim.

“Lad,” he grunted and the cabin boy fled up the stairs. The Captain was gathering the sheets from the bed, pulling rolls of rope from one of the lock-ups, frantic in his need for more tools to serve his men.

“There must be something we can do,” Brienne insisted, hand on her sword hilt as though she were about to challenge the storm to combat.

“Pray,” he whispered with hollow eyes, before he turned and went above.

Huddled below, the winds seemed more unholy, the crashing of the waves very much like the roar of the great beast that the young Brienne may have heard from behind her castle walls. Petyr could not deny the fear that crept through him, and knew that the night would be long and sleepless. Sansa clutched him closer and he pressed a hand into her side. If he could soother her, he could soothe himself.

The cabin flashed again, and he only caught a glimpse of his wife's pale face before they were plunged into rolling, hellish darkness once again.

~~~

Morning arrived and the winds left. There were shouts from above. The boat had stilled. He was not sure if he had truly slept or just momentarily left the present in his fatigue, but Sansa was tangled in his arms, dozing within the warm confines of his cloak. Brienne was awake but slumped underneath the porthole, watching the water dripping through the ceiling onto the floor between her spread legs. The cold lamps swung in lazy circles over her head.

More cries and the thudding of feet gave him incentive to move. With care, Petyr tried to shift without waking his slumbering wife but she stirred and blinked up with bleary eyes as he pulled away, groaning in protest.

“Stay below,” he spoke gently. Sansa frowned, heavy with sleep, but said nothing as he righted his clothes and took up the stairs to the main deck.

He was met with a disheartening sight.

The fog was a thick curtain of grey-white settled on the sea. Petyr looked over the side of the ship, and even then it was difficult to make out the waterline through the viscous mist. Instead the world disappeared into nothingness. They were drifting on lifeless water, with no bearing and a shredded main sail, wandering wherever the tides deemed to take them. Tybourne looked as haggard as his ravaged ship as he took stock of what remained of _Wyman’s Wrath_. The sailors gathered ropes, sloughed off silt and stitched salvaged cloth.

“Two men overboard,” a rough voice said in his ear. Haar appeared like a gaunt, spindling wraith to his right and turned his face to the sky, squinting, searching. There was nothing to be seen, only a listless shroud. “We’re off course,” he muttered. “Too far south.” 

“How can you tell?” Petyr asked. It was daylight, to be sure, but little else was obvious in the suffocating empty white space.

“The heat,” he said, then nodded over Petyr’s shoulder, “the shore.”

On the edges of the fog, a wall of darkness loomed, fading into view. Tall and wide and black, it took Petyr a moment to realise it was the shore of a jutting headland. And it was one he had seen many times before, he was almost certain. 

A hoarse cry came from above in what remained of the crow’s nest high up the battered main mast, the holler of the man directing the Captain’s gaze to the stern. A ship had managed to glide in close, the sea fret obscuring her approach. The same mist clouded the sails and the sigils. Then there were two, three or more – now port, then starboard. Soon they were surrounded on all flanks by flotilla of spectres rippling silently through the fog.

Petyr caught Haar tense. The old man’s his hand moved to the dirk at his belt. Tybourne’s face went from ruddy weathered brown to the pallor of a death mask as realisation dawned. The sails were dark like those from the fleet of Daenerys Targaryen but the boats were long and low in the water.

“Arm yourselves!” the Captain yelled, the sound muffled in the muggy air. “Raiders incoming!”

All the sailors drew their swords, the sharp sound of two dozen blades scraping from scabbards. Petyr’s own men looked to him for confirmation and he shook his head.

“Surrender,” he ordered, firm and loud enough for Tybourne to hear.  

“My Lord…they are Euron Greyjoy’s men. Ironborn,” the Captain said, pleading. Perhaps he thought that Petyr did not understand the threat that tendrilled towards them. “They will kill us whether we fight or not.”

“Let me talk to them,” Petyr demanded with authority. He was the Lord who had chartered this ship, the orders issued from his own mouth were paramount.

Haar eyed him with suspicion, dagger gripped tight in a weathered hand.

“My Lord…” Tybourne begged, sword still drawn.

“Surrender and let me speak,” he said.

Then metal clanked against wood and Petyr turned to see a spidery hook gripping the side of the ship. Another flew up into the air landed with a thud a few feet away from the first. Then another and another and another. Thump, thump, thump into a row of clutching iron claws.

Petyr saw the readied men begin to panic, fear clung to the deck like droplets of morning dew. His own knights had drawn their swords and edged into a circle around his person.

But it was too late. They were overcome.

The Ironborn flowed over the side like a wave and crashed as great, breaking waves, large and gristled and stinking of the sea. The sharp cabin boy screamed and ran forward, holding his sword aloft. For a moment he was a brave man until his parts were wrenched from him like a gutted fish, falling onto the deck with a sickening flop.

More of Tybourne’s men rushed the invaders, screaming war cries from of a dozen different houses. Petyr’s men inched back, tightening the wall of Vale steel. He had only his Valyrian steel dagger at his hip, useless unless he planned to slice the throat of a man with no arms.

A sword skittered across the briny wood, a severed hand still clutching at the hilt. He lunged to grab it, but the heavy shoulder of one of his own men stood in the way. He realised his life was in the hands of the men who stood before him, none of whom wore a scrap of plate unlike the brave, mad beasts that were cutting through seasoned men as if they were rushing to bring in the harvest before a hail.

He saw Haar using the advantage of his gangly reach to slit the throat of a man. The blood spurted in a pulsing arc coating the older man’s grim face. Flesh, not iron, just like he said. Tybourne bellowed orders and battle cries but Petyr could not see over the height of his men, broad backs blocking his vision.

A sickening warm wetness splashed across his face and one of his defenders fell backwards into him. Then he saw the man with a gaping toothless maw edging in, a blade bared high and ready to strike. Petyr waved his pitiful dagger but there was nowhere to turn. The man's sword rose, preparing to fall onto his neck, then he stopped, shocked into the likeness of a statue. He fell to reveal Haar with his bloodied dirk and a grim smile. The tall man clutched at a wound on his stomach, red gushing between his fingers. He nodded to Petyr then turned, ran and leapt with long, ranging limbs into the sea.

Starboard, more hooks began to fall and soon there were reavers pouring in from all sides, far too many to take. Desperation began to seize his men, one stumbled over the still bleeding corpse of his comrade.

And then all Petyr could think of was Sansa.

In the chaos he could not see whether the raiders had gone below. He grabbed at one of the Knights, wrenching the man down to his own height. “You! Go defend Lady Baelish,” he ordered, and shoved the man off toward the steps to the cabin. But his fears were already confirmed. He could hear her shouting over the din, trying to reason with the man that held her captive but he could not make out her words.

Where the _fuck_ was Brienne? How had two or three or even six Ironborn managed to fight their way past her formidable size and skill? He tried not to think on his wife’s most steadfast defender bleeding out below. He tried not to think of what these savage things might do to his wife if he could not gain control of this violence.

But as soon as he heard the cry he knew it was hers. He only caught a glance before ducking out of the path of an axe that came hurtling over his head. He turned to see it embedded in the back of one of his own men.

Petyr was trapped between his own knights and a wall of blooded Ironborn with gnashing, rotten teeth. He couldn’t get to her. The crew of _Wyman’s Wrath_ soaked the deck, sloshing back and forth as the ship rolled on the waves. To his right he saw one clamber aboard, holding himself different from all the others. He moved with languor and his armour was gilded with the golden Kraken of House Greyjoy.

“Stop! We yield!” he shouted, gaining the man’s attention: a dark, drawn brow and a curled lip. Petyr presented his palms, lowering himself to his knees on the damp floor. Immediately, the Knights of the Vale followed suit. “I am Lord Petyr Baelish of Harrenhal, Lord Paramoount of the Trident and Protector of the Vale.”

The Ironborn leader turned and raised a hand, and immediately his men stopped. With a quick stride the man fell upon him, and wrenched Petyr to his feet by the scruff of his cloak, rancid breath wafting across his face. The foul man chuckled, a harsh sound that gurgled in his throat. “You could be Lord of the fucking fairies for all I care,” he spat, “I’m still gonna slit your throat and take me all them nice shiny baubles you’re wearin’.”

Petyr still could not see Sansa but he dared not look away now that he had the man’s attention. So he shifted his features, sliding the mask into place. It was dusty from disuse. “I am an ally of Cersei Lannister,” he said with haughty confidence. Here he was, once again: Littlefinger.

It got the interest he expected. Petyr found himself released without ceremony, and he tried not to stumble back. He heard a gasp that was certainly Sansa but he still dared not seek her out. She could not be his weakness. Not now.

“An ally, ey?” the man mulled, eyes shifting around the boat. It was obvious that aside from Petyr’s own finery and perhaps some choice steel, there was little to be had. As much as they harped on about paying the Iron Price for their trophies, these men were men like any other and would always be tempted to wager for the chance of a larger prize. _Know how to move him._ “Then what're you doing sniffing 'round Dragonstone? All we seen is that damn Targaryen woman’s ships in these waters.”

They had indeed blown far off course. It was a wonder they weren’t shattered against the rocks.

“We were caught in the storm,” he said, seeding his lie with the truth, “I am on my way to deliver a gift: a wedding present for the Queen and her new husband.” He did not, could not, look at her but he could still picture how her face would be shuttering, the drawbridge rising, walls impenetrable. Another act of betrayal.

“Gift? What kinda gift?” he asked, eyes lighting with greed.

Littlefinger smirked, the familiar stretch of his lips tearing raw across his face. “Why, the Lady Sansa Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A HUGE MEGA THANK YOU TO THIS BIRD: [equipoise](http://archiveofourown.org/users/equipoise/pseuds/equipoise) who you may also know by her rapper name as [The Scholarly Strumpet.](http://thescholarlystrumpet.tumblr.com/)
> 
> There is an alternate Chapter 18 available, which I wrote for the wonderfully encouraging [moffnat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/moffnat/pseuds/moffnat) aka [kitharington,](http://kitharington.tumblr.com/) aka Sin Mother. 
> 
> It is available [ here. ](http://rbennetwrites.tumblr.com/post/150596646595/a-boy-from-nowhere-alternate-chapter-18) It is the opposite of serious.


	18. The Many Faced Man

The Red Keep loomed over the rotting carcass of King’s Landing.

The stench was palpable, visceral. He wanted to scrub the air that touched his skin. Sansa wrinkled her nose as she was dragged, and he was guided, through streets flowing with piss and shit and stinking ale.

Chains. They had put her in chains _._

Up ahead, a fight broke out of a tavern, a jeering mess of fists punctured with the crunch of crushed noses and the rattle of teeth hitting cobbled stone. Two men, sour with drink, dragged a screaming whore into an alley. Fearless rats moved across their path. A skeletal woman – perhaps now a corpse – lay in the filth, clutching a squalling bundle in thin rags. He saw Sansa’s jaw clench, saw her turn away. Shouts came in bursts of obscenities, laughter, and the afternoon was cool with the clinging waft of sex and decay. The bile began to rise in his own throat. He distanced himself from his disgust.

The militant men of faith were gone, and not a golden cloak in sight. Instead a heaving, seething pit of depravity had grown like a mould in the void. The irony was not lost on him that the in the day when the City Watch, and most other trade besides, were subsidised from the profits of whoring, gambling and money lending, that the Capital had been a much gentler place for the common folk. Now, every street was submerged in the wants of these reavers from the other side of the Kingdom, men that were used to razing and raping fishing villages now let loose in an undefended city of thousands. 

He heard a small grunt and a curse and saw Brienne stumble and fall onto the piss-soaked stone.

“Get the fuck up,” one of the Ironborn, growled, kicking a boot into her spine. Brienne wheezed and coughed, her eyes rolling back in her head. Two of them hauled her to her feet. The dressing around her stomach was drenched again with blood and the large woman’s face was colourless, bleary with pain. Out of her armour, she looked smaller.

Petyr turned and focused his eyes on the back of the man with the gilded Greyjoy sigil on his armour: Fisk, the Captain of _Leviathan._ Petyr had been glad of the short journey to Blackwater Bay after their surrender. Fisk had been swayed by the chance of a fat pile of gold but he was as coarse and deviant as any of his men. Any longer at sea and Petyr feared that the Captain would grow bored of his captives and lose sight of the long-term goal like an impatient child. He would have gone overboard and there would have been nothing between a ship full of Ironborn and his wife.

Through it all, Sansa had not spoken a word, only kept vigil by her fallen Lady Knight.

Their fumbling procession emerged from the bowls of the city, climbing the hill to the seat of power. The centre of the Seven Kingdoms. He took a moment to turn and look west to the former Sept of Baelor, now a sarcophagus of rubble on a grave for hundreds. In the end, not even the gods could protect them.

He ascended the steps, one at a time. One foot in front of the other.

Here, the floor was clean.

{dreamer}

_A lofty spire spindled up into the sky, towers that surely house only the finest princesses waiting to be saved. The Red Keep reaching into the blue, cloudless heavens, walls like iridescent fire in the light of the summer sun. The home of Kings and Princes for hundreds of year and beneath those stones, behind these parapets, the bones of Balerion the Black Dread._

_In the shadow of its glory it was easy to believe in love, hope and dashing heroes on mighty steeds. Easy for a no-name, insignificant young man to climb to the top of the highest tower, breathless with want, to gaze out over the city._

_From up here, he imagined he could see the whole world._

{fool}

The palace was once a queen of love and beauty, long gone to seed.

It was cold. The air held a heavy chill distinct from the threat of Winter.

In the courtyard – a place he remembered as ever-bustling, teeming with the busywork of dozens of household – it was still. Solemn, blank faces shuffled passed them, dead-eyed thralls carrying oversized packs of undersized harvest. Even the whinny of the horses seemed subdued.

The City Watch greeted their party adorned in the same golden helms and cloaks, but these men were meaner, bigger, harsher than Petyr recalled. Not one was a familiar face. Many had the ruddy, weathered complexions of seamen.

Led through the yard and up the steps to Maegar’s Holdfast, through the doors ten times as high as they need be to let in a man of normal height. Led along halls draped with tapestries that told stories he could recite by rote. Led to the Great Hall. The lion’s lair.

He could hear the chains that bound her wrists rattling with each of Sansa’s sure-footed steps. He wondered if they would leave this place alive.

Disconcertion writhed under his skin, how everything was so recognisable and yet so changed. The light came through the windows at a lower angle, and dust fell in the air like snowfall onto the empty throne of defeated swords. Every blade with its own story, an owner lost to the depths of history. Not a thousand as the stories claimed. Not nearly. One hundred eighty-four.

He had counted.

{schemer}

_Any problem could be solved with a little thought. Any tangle of strings could be undone with enough patience. Any game could be beaten if you thought one step ahead of your opponent._

_What could be gained? What needed to be sacrificed?_

_Soon, the inevitable confrontation. Would the Queen be pleased? He had promised her Sansa’s head. He had prostrated himself, told her: ‘I live to serve.’ A vague, meaningless statement at the time that could hold as much weight as she believed it to now._

_Cersei would not trust him, but she would think she could use him. And in this he could use her. Buy some time to think, to regain his footing in this unfamiliar court that he used to own. Wrangle his way into her good graces. Gods forbid, seduce her if necessary._

_And then there was the unpredictable, uncontrollable factor: Sansa._

_His lady wife knew of his involvement in Joffrey’s death. She could spill his secrets like a ripened pomegranate, throw him down as fuel for the pyre before she too inevitably succumbed to the flames. But he had seen her sense of self-preservation in action before. He knew her smarter than honour, able to read when an advantage presented itself. Whether she trusted him or not, once again, he the only one who could defend her._

_In this then, there were two distinct possibilities: they would both live, they would both die._

{climber}

The Kingslayer was the first to greet them, with a chainless Maester arriving in his wake.

Petyr’s dealings with the Lannister man had only ever been ceremonial. Ser Jaime followed the King, and the King would rarely cross the threshold of the Small Council room. They were men who knew each other in reputation, both reprehensible in their own corners of King’s Landing.

“Fisk,” he greeted. “Lord Baelish,” he added with that predatory smile common to all from Tywin Lannister’s loins. But it was a hollow thing, and behind the mask of the lion there was absence. “We thought you lost to the Northerners. And yet I see you bring their Lady in chains.”

Petyr inclined his head. “My Lord, it is an honour.”

Jaime opened his mouth to respond with words that were sure to be cutting, but his eyes caught on the barely conscience Brienne leaning heavily on her captors. His mask of indifference stuttered.

“The Lady is badly injured, my Lord,” the Maester said. His voice was gentle, soft, but the old man’s eyes shone, his tongue darted out to lick his lips.

Captain Fisk mistook the man’s meaning. “Fer fuck’s sake – just slit that overgrown cunt’s throat,” he grumbled. Two of the men moved gladly, pulling their swords, eyes greedy.

Petyr heard Sansa cry out an objection, but it was Jaime Lannister that started.

“Stop,” Jaime ordered, not moving an inch, face of stone. The two ironborn brutes halted, reluctant and grumbling, but yielded to the Lannister man’s authority. “She is the daughter of Lord Selwyn Tarth and worth more to us alive.” He turned to the Maester. “Take her, fix her. Do not let her die.”

There had been rumours, lewd mutterings that followed the pair around the Kingdoms. The Kingslayer and Brienne the Beauty, a pair fit for lusty tales of mockery that singers loved to play. And he had gifted her his sword, _Oathkeeper_. Petyr imagined that for a woman like Brienne of Tarth was worth far more than jewels or declarations with garland crowns. 

And Jaime’s eyes never left the large woman as she was carried off to the depths of the Red Keep. “What did you do with her sword, her armour?” he asked.

One of the Ironborn – with one eye and one empty socket – looked sheepish and shuffled his boot like a scolded child but said nothing.

“Both are property of the crown,” he said. “They need to be returned.”

“But-“

“I couldn’t give a shit about your iron price. Bring them to me or I will have you strung up outside with the last ironborn man who disobeyed me,” Jaime threatened with typical Lannister languor. “Now leave, you are making the place smell like fish.”

The rabble of salty men filed out, escorted by the City Watch.

“My Lady Sansa, forgive me,” the Kingslayer bowed, pretending to be a gallant Knight greeting an honoured guest. Ignoring the chains around her wrists. “Welcome back to King’s Landing. Please do excuse the mess.”

Sansa’s lips thinned, the expression making her look more like Catelyn than Petyr had ever seen, but she was kept from her reply by the entrance of the Queen.

Her fanfare was a funeral dirge. Somewhere a mournful voice declared a litany of worthless titles _‘…Cersei the first of her name, Rightful Queen of the Andals…”_ and she entered: all black, all hard, all pointed steel.

She moved like a withered crone manipulating the carcass of a once beautiful woman. Her hate had consumed her from the inside out. Her hair short and dry as straw, face shadowed and gaunt. Jaime moved to stand at her shoulder, he too looking like tarnished gold.

But when her deadened green eyes landed on his wife they lit with callous satisfaction, corners of her mouth turning upwards.

{vengeance}

_And now you know how it feels when all is taken from you, Lannister. Brother-fucker. And yet you still land on your paws, don’t you? Sharpened claws. Land on that fucking throne, dirty, used-up filthy cunt rubbing against the lives and legacies of hundreds. Why would you care about such a thing? Power is power….in your simple mind, no never mind where you got it, whether you deserve it. A foolish whore in finery, slick with jewels and drenched in gold. Sit up there and look down on me now, sit up there and smile at me now, sit up there and I will wrench you down, even if I must pull apart those welded swords with my own two hands. Power is only power until it’s not._

{influence}

Sansa stood to his right, straight-backed, cloak wrapped tight around her, the small rise of her belly pressing against the wool.

He tore his eyes away and looked at the queen, painting on his lacquered, simpering smirk. Humble, grubby coin-counter. Oily, oozing Littlefinger.

“My Queen,” he said and bowed low enough to lick the dirt from the floor, to live among the bugs and rats and waste.

“Arise, Lord Baelish.”

“Your Grace, I have delivered my promise.”

Cersei raised an eyebrow. “Fisk informs me that you were captured heading South,” she commented. “How do I know you weren’t on your way to treat with the Targaryen whore? You declared the Vale army for House Stark.”

He spoke without a pause, inhabiting his character like slipping on a long-missed cloak. “I did. And now the Vale army is spread far too thin across the North and Riverlands, thanks to my own orders. I was always on my way to you, Your Grace,” he said and noted the flicker of interest light again behind those dead eyes. “A truce was necessary to ensure safe passage to Gullstown for myself and-”

“The Lady Baelish?” she interrupted with a triumphant smirk.

“Your Grace-“ he started.

“Yes, I heard it was a beautiful ceremony. And my traitor brother an honoured guest?” She was baring her teeth. A lion's smile.

“I needed an heir Your Grace,” he said maintaining calculated disinterest, “and I am ashamed to say that no one has ever quite managed to…arouse my interest the same way as a Tully woman.” 

Cersei let out an amused huff of air. “She cannot give you an heir if I have her executed for treason.”

“Cersei…” Jaime warned and it was enough to make the Queen pause.

“That is the one thing I ask of you, Your Grace,” he beseeched, weaving his words with the casual pragmatism of the one-time coin-counter she was familiar with. Let her see no threat, no agenda, other than his own self-service. “Let her live until the child is born." The concept seemed to disturb Cersei and her eyes darted to the swell of Sansa's stomach. "Then you may do with her what you wish. Exact your vengeance.”

Sansa flinched. But said nothing.

The Queen’s face hardened, wine-stained lips pursed into dissatisfaction. Her cold eyes did not leave his stalwart wife as Jaime leaned to whisper in his sister’s ear.

{lover}

_“I am hers and she is mine…”_

_…the rise and fall of her chest and puffs of breath that caress his face... her hair catches the sunlight and her eyes sparkle with youthful wonder and the air smells of horse and ale and smoke..._

_…their child grows in her belly, the fall of her tresses through his fingers, the feel of her surrounding him as he sinks into her…._

_…reminds him of a song, a story, a time when hope was a tangible glimmer in her blue, blue eyes…untainted…love…_

_“…from this day, until the end of my days.”_

{loved}

The chains fell to the ground, a clang of metal on stone that made him flinch.

“Fine,” Cersei snapped, mouth twisted in an ugly sneer, “you may have your heir, Lord Baelish. And then I will have my pretty head.”

The Queen rose. He bowed, and Cersei swept from the room, taking the heavy fog of death with her and the air cleared into a more breathable substance.  A black, rotting Queen ruling her black, rotting Kingdom. It would take very little knock over the props that held it aloft. 

Sansa swayed on her feet and clutched her cloak close around her. Without thinking, he moved to support her but she flinched away. For the first time in days, she met his eyes.

And the realisation of what had become of them came quick enough to ravage his soul and leave again in a moment. His stomach turned. His vision blurred. He tried to steady his shaking hands, push his mask back into its proper place. He tried to fix his gaze anywhere but at black hurt in Sansa’s eyes. 

He looked up to see Jaime Lannister still atop the dais, eyeing them both warily. “Show Lord and Lady Baelish to their rooms,” he ordered to the guard. “Ensure that they have every comfort they need.”

She turned without a word and left.

{fated}

_Meaningless really, it is all meaningless. Why he needs her. Why he loves her. Why he should save her. Why he shouldn't._

_Why they have come to rest here. What he cannot change. What he can._

_He can only play with the pieces he has. And he is a piece himself._

_Aren’t they all just that - just a part of it all - in the end? Moved by gods, or just other men._

_Yes, he will say, yes…do with me what you will…play your heavenly games, toy with the men who cannot know what is to come, who cannot possibly know the rules. Do with me what you will…_

_I am still here._

{victor}

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason writing this chapter has been like pulling teeth from a grumpy lion. Had to just get it out before I lost an arm, or, my face. Must be all the Lannisters in it.


	19. Coming Home

With no small trepidation, Petyr stepped into the lion’s lair. The floor may not have been strewn with gnawed bones but the shutters of the great window were flung wide, framing a view of the Sept’s remains. Was this her favourite tableau to look on, the demolished evidence of her victory?

Cersei’s power was built on a pile of ashes. An unstable foundation, indeed.

The last time he had entered these rooms he had come armed with a plan, well-formed on the long journey south from Winterfell. The last time he had been here, the woman he faced had been only half as mad. Now, the High Sparrow and his pious wrath had stripped what was left away with humiliation and shame.

The last time she was not a Queen made of vengeance and grief, and Petyr had been much better practised at his deceptive art. The weeks spent White Harbour, swaddled from the world, had made him slow. Weak. It would take only the smallest slip and he too would be tossed on her pile of corpses.

The sun was beginning to set over her dying Kingdom. Her gaudy, gilded chair caught the light, at odds with the way her body languished among the shadows covered head to toe in mourning.

“Please. Sit.” She bit off the words like a predator wrenching meat away from bone.

He lowered himself. The dwindling Winter sun blinded him for a moment.

Cersei met his eyes over her extravagant writing desk, strewn with missives and mangled quills. A goblet of wine stood within familiar reach of her right hand. “I hope your accommodations are to your liking.”

Petyr nodded, even though it was not a question. Even though it his response would not matter the slightest. Even though the rooms in the Maidenvault were still haunted by the ghost of the Tyrells. There had been no effort to change the linens embroidered with roses or the tapestries that hung with tales of The Reach.

Sansa was resting, shut-up with her appointed handmaid, a timid girl with wispy black hair and black eyes too large for her face. She reminded Petyr of a beetle, or some other flying insect, wholly inoffensive but irritating in their ever-presence. He had no doubts that she would be memorising every word, watching every action, between himself and his wife with those dark, wet eyes.

He had gone to his own chambers without a word, taking time to bathe and change, letting the heat from the tub form around his thoughts, reclaiming the man that was once at home within these walls. The man he needed to find again and soon if there were any chance of surviving to see the outside of these walls again.

Littlefinger.

Once there was a man who lived on the line, who would smile with his enemies while he robbed his friends. When the halls of this keep had no hidden shadows, unless he wished them there. When he dressed others in finery woven from heady lies and unpleasant truths.

When he could sit across from Cersei Lannister making jibes about the extent of his knowledge on her indiscretions without his heart pounding in his ears.

Cersei plucked a missive from the pile, unfurled the parchment and began to read. “ _Your Grace, Queen Cersei First of Her Name, I pledge myself and the armies I control as Lord Protector of the Vale, the Lord Paramount of the Trident, to the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms._

 _“I have reached Winterfell and secured my place at the table of the bastard Snow. Outwardly, I have declared for the King in the North as a means to deliver what I have promised. You shall have your vengeance my Queen…_ ” She looked up as his words trailed off.

He spread his palms. “And I delivered, did I not?”

The silence stretched between them as thin and bloodless as her lips. Green eyes, steeped in rage, held his gaze. “So you did,” she said.

“And in return you promised to name me Warden of the North.”

“I promised…” she echoed, considering him with her dead eyes. Looking through him. Perhaps she was listening to her own voices, little licks and wicked whispers in her ears that told her to burn and smite and kill. He wondered if in that way he had his own form of madness. “A promise.” Her chin tilted up, regal. The light from the window caught in the hollows of her face, making great shadows in her sunken cheeks. “Promises are the currency of fools,” she snapped, mouth twisting as though the thought was bitter.

“A deal, then. A business arrangement,” he said. “Where both parties get what they want.”

Her drifting eyes snapped back to his face with a familiar fire. “ _What I want_ is gone. Taken from me. Forever.”

“But…you still have the possibility of vengeance,” he tempered, “for what you have lost.”

“And you would make me wait months for that vengeance,” she hissed, leaning both her hands on the wood. “For that little whore to birth your precious heir.”

“I would offer you the chance for an even greater victory.”

She straightened, raised a sceptical brow but allowed him to continue.

“I learned a great deal in my time in the North. I was part of Jon Snow’s inner circle of advisors. He shared plans with me that no one else was privy to.”

“And are you going to tell me, or attempt to extort more titles? I grow bored of these games, Lord Baelish.”

He ignored the edge in her voice, and pushed on. “Snow believes his greatest threat is at the wall, from the White Walkers.”

It drew her out and Cersei scoffed, “The Northerners are superstitious barbarians.”

“That they may be but the Wildlings have aligned with them under a common cause, swelling the Northern ranks. But he also believes that Winter will protect him from your army marching North, and rightly so – it would not be wise to send so many men to die of exposure and famine.”

She watched him but said nothing waiting for him to continue.

“If he learns you hold his sister hostage, it will distract him,” he noted. “Force him to split his efforts and march South to meet you on the field of battle. On your terms.”

“And what of the Knights of the Vale, the great army that would help you take Winterfell. Will they fight for you or for him?”

“They will fight for whoever the Lord Arryn supports,” he said smoothly.

“If he survives the Winter. I have heard he is sickly.”

“His soldiers are still loyal. And the boy is loyal to me.” He spread his hands, a gesture of deference. “I am loyal to the crown-“

Her laugh was harsh and without humour, more like the quork of a crow settled on fresh carrion. “Lord Baelish, you are loyal to whatever suits you in the moment,” she drawled. “I wonder if your young wife knows just how fickle you can be? Ned Stark certainly didn’t.”

He called her bluff, affecting a look of boredom. “I care nothing for what the girl thinks of me. It is her impeccable blood lines that I am after. A Stark heir to secure the North and the loyalty of the Northern families.”

Cersei’s eyes narrowed. Without a word, she stood, moving around the table that separated the two of the them. Slow, malevolent. Her finger skimmed along the polished wood as came to perch before him, the hem of her black gown swept over his shoes.

“But that’s not the whole tale is it?” she asked, tilting her head. For a moment, she assessed him, eyes flickering over his chest, his pin, his beard. “She is beautiful. So much like her mother…” Cersei’s tone shifted, she bent to bring her face closer to his, her voice lowered to a veiled whisper. “What is it about that soft-headed girl that men can’t seem to resist? Surely she’s the same between her legs as any other.”

“Your Grace…” he said, as her wandering fingers began to draw a path down his arm.

Her heat, her presence in the air around him was unpleasant enough to leave a tanging taste on his tongue. Her breathe was thick with wine, red stained lips from the grapes and he imagined that it was blood he saw between her teeth.

Cersei Lannister had once been famous throughout the Seven Kingdoms for her beauty. He remembered the first time he had been invited to court, and saw her in in all her splendour sitting beside Robert Baratheon.

But what vibrancy, the youth and splendour than had once lit her from the inside as a young queen was now a spent flame. Flickering out, like embers in a dying fire, leaving nothing in the daylight.

He tensed beneath her roaming hands. Willed his stillness as she moved to whisper her lips against his ear, in a lover’s caress. As her hand moved lower, thumb brushing, then stilling against the seam of his thigh.

“I could have her killed …anytime I wish.” He felt her septic smile against his cheek. Another stagnant breath and her fingers squeezed at his flesh. “I could take her pretty hair and cut it from her head, let it fall in chunks to the floor and have it swept away. I could tie her to a cart and parade her naked through the streets. I could give her to the Mountain…”Cersei pulled back, just enough for him to see the madness that danced behind her eyes. Like green fire. “He grew tired of his last play-thing. Poor dear, she made such a mess.”

She bared her teeth, dangling him in her claws. Then she moved away, straightening with a deep breath and reached for her goblet, shrugging the clinging insanity to the floor like a sodden cloak.

“But you are right, she is valuable. And you-“ She brandished her wine at him. “You have your uses. I need a councillor with a mind for strategy. Qyburn has his little birds but is too distracted by his trinkets. And Jaime is… a shadow of what he once was.”

He echoed those words that had trapped and saved him in this very room. “I live to serve, Your Grace.”

“You may go. Spend some time with that lovely wife of yours; you have only so much time left to enjoy her after all.”

He rose, bowed and moved to leave, putting one foot in front of the other. Refusing to look out of the window, shuttering his mind.

“Lord Baelish?” she called, and stopped but did not turn, his fingers ready to turn the latch. “If I ever have the smallest reason to doubt your loyalty you will _wish_ you were buried under the Sept of Baelor like the rest of those who betrayed me.”

He was fifty paces down the corridor before he let his hands shake.

~~~

The stone staircase descended into darkness. He used a hand on the damp wall to guide him down into the gloom. The air was heavy and stale, heated by an unseen fire. Glass full of bubbling liquids, a cascade of colour and texture, tubes that flowed with unknown concoctions interlinking in yards and yards like arteries circulating life-blood.

And it was not empty.

He was greeted with a waft of air like death. He turned to see the figure looming over him, rattling out a black, stinking breath. It took Petyr a second to realise who - or what - it was. Gregor Clegane moved as though a mass of writhing maggot lived beneath that blue-grey flesh. A hulking corpse of rotting leftovers dressed in gleaming plate. Petyr did not want to consider the stains that splattered the once-white cloak.

Here were forces at work that he could not understand, but a sinister pressure began to build in his chest, not unlike the insignificance he felt underneath the Heartstree with the old gods facing him. The Mountain gurgled or growled, but it was a sound that should not come from a wholesome living thing.

“Easy Gregor,” a voice muttered and the Maester moved from the shadows. “Lord Baelish merely wishes to see the patient. You may go.”

The Mountain said nothing, but turned and left, clanking up the stairs with heavy, deadened steps.

“I thank you, Maester,” Petyr said, grateful to be absent Clegane's presence.

“I have not been a Maester for many years, my lord,” he said with a genial bow. “But I strive to be of service. Please, Qyburn will suffice.”

His eyes began to adjust to the lack of light and for the first time he noticed Brienne laying like a slab of meat on a stone table, grey and drained free of colour, only a grubby sheet to protect her modesty.

“You were meant to keep her alive,” he pointed out.

The older man shifted, nodded, blinked. “She is.”

Petyr moved closer and yes, he could now see a subtle rise and fall in her chest. The padding around her stomach oozed blood.

“Will she recover?” he asked.

“Recover…” Qyburn said, mulling on the word as if trying to remember the meaning. “Hmm…I should hope so. If it works, of course.”

“If what works?”

“Oh, just a small experiment I’ve been working on. Nothing too extreme. A transfusion.”

Petyr’s eyes flicked to the door, to path that Clegane had taken out of the room. Qyburn caught his look.

“Oh no, an entirely different case. He was…quite gone…by the time I reached him. Yes. Quite gone,” he nodded, as if reassuring himself.

On the slab, Brienne moaned. It was a woeful sound, low and long, lingering. Nothing like the vigorous peals of pain and shock that a man cries when freshly wounded. Or the grunts and puffs of stoicism in the face of prolonged agony. Qyburn bustled to her side and lifted the padding on her stomach, muttering to himself with words like ‘saturation’ and ‘fester’.

“She is too valuable to die,” Petyr insisted, and could not explain the mild panic that simmered up, threatening to overflow, like the set of glass bottles over flame, to his right.

“Yes. Yes.” The man’s tone shifted to one of impatience, his posture stiffened. “Ser Jaime has been most insistent.” A quick, self-conscious smile and Qyburn relaxed again into something more genial. More practised. He turned back to Brienne.

“He has been to see her?”

Qyburn nodded, distracted as he changed the dressing. The used linens fell to the floor with a dull, wet squelch. “To get an update for the Queen. I would go myself, but she has me very busy with important work.” He gestured to the lab. Aside from the various concoctions that bubbled and hissed, he could see nothing that would hold the man’s attention. “So if you wouldn’t mind, My Lord, I must be getting on.”

The older man’s smile was sharp and did not match the glint in his eye. Petyr found himself missing the soft, powdered smugness of Varys gliding around in silk and veiled threats. At least in the eunuch he had a well-matched foe who had in his heart the good of the realm, not this other that lived on the edges, quietly playing god.

~~~

Crooked eyes stared at him, hewn in white and weeping. They saw though him. Into the man he used to be, and was now only wearing the skin of.

He was reminded of the sunken eyes of the Queen. The wan face of Brienne.

This tree was straggling, thin and twisted, only a babe compared to the thick and towering might of the Hearts Tree in the weirwood of Winterfell. He wondered if it was too warm in the South for the old gods to prosper, their reach stunted, their powers more a muted grey-pink than full-blooded red.

Surrounded by these walls, it was easy to forget the North. Easier still to deny the spirits that many claimed in these trees. Even when he had seen that evidence with his own eyes.

A lingering foulness had settled over the Red Keep that was nothing like the place he once knew. The life had left this city, perhaps kept alive only by the unnatural will of men like Qyburn. As if the gods had turned their backs. All left to rot.

He ran his finger along the natural joins in the bark, measuring the sinew of the wood. He closed his eyes, palm flat above one mournful brow.

He thought of the boy with large brown eyes. Willed the gods to hear, or see, or feel him.

_We are here. Help us._

Nothing. Just the rustling of the wind in red leaves.

~~~

The brush glided through her hair and the strands caught the candlelight. She seemed relaxed, clean after her bath but he noticed the taught set of her shoulders. He took a full minute to watch before he announced his presence. In this place that was familiar to them both, but could never be a home, with a pang he realised he wanted to savour what little moments he could.

The handmaid stepped away from Sansa, retreating to a corner with downturned eyes: Cersei’s little bird who would sing a little song, a sweet tune of every word in this room.

“You met with Cersei today.” The refusal to use the proper title, a telling statement from a girl raised to the strictest courtesies.

“I did,” he said and moved to stand behind her at the dresser, looking at her reflection in instead of her real face.

“I hope she at least had you beat a little before you betrayed all of my brother’s secrets,”she said, glib. "Don’t touch me,” she snapped, lurching away from his outstretched hand. He had moved to run his fingers through her hair without thinking.

He sighed and stepped back, a begrudging distance between them. 

“I want to see Brienne,” she demanded.

“You are not permitted to leave this tower.”

“You cannot make me stay.”

“You will do as I say.” _…to keep you safe,_ he wanted to say. He flicked his gaze to the maid, her back was turned to them as she folded some sheets he could swear had already been neat and laundered. “There is a guard posted outside these rooms.”

“I want to see Brienne,” she said again. More insistent.

“The Lady Brienne is a valuable hostage for the Queen. It would be imprudent to let her die.” He hoped she would see the crumb for what it was.   

Sansa paused, her blue eyes glancing at the maid before levelling on his, her face taught. “And me?” she asked. “Our son? Would it be _imprudent_ to let us die?” Her voice was at odds with her words, fully calm and detached from sentiment. He did not know what that meant.

“The Queen is sending word North that he holds you captive. Your brother will negotiate for your release.”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you believe her? She will never let me leave alive. She thinks I murdered her son.”

He held his breath, willing her to spill his most potent secret in the presence of the Queen’s ears. The one that would have him dead before the sun rose. _You killed a King for her…._

Sansa said nothing. Her eyes roamed his face, as if searching for something hidden, measuring for a clue of his intent. Petyr _willed_ \- prayed harder than he had to any gods – that she could see this for what it was. What he _had_ to do.

Whatever she was looking for, she did not seem to find it. All her energy left her and she blinked back tears that stung him even though they did not fall down her cheeks. Her shoulders slumped. “I am going to bed.”

He turned to the maid, still lingering like a persistent fruit-fly. He attempted to swat her away. “You are dismissed.”

She shook her head. “I sleep in the Lady’s rooms, m’lord. The Queen has ordered.”

He wanted to scream at Cersei’s paranoia. Rage and shout like a child at how _unfair_ the world was. “What if I want to take my rights as a husband?” he drawled, making the question as lascivious as only a former brothel keep can.

She shrugged, not meeting his eyes, but not cowering either and then shuffled off after Sansa.

He was left standing alone in the luxury of their new prison cell, confined by the sigil of a House that no longer existed. Trapped by circumstance, fate or what ever cruel force seemed to move him like a marionette. The gods, or something, conspired against him. A cruel twist that only the man he used to be before could save them. And as much as he dug, scraped through the soils, he could not unearth that old piece of himself that would be at home here. Was it lost to him forever? Or buried too deep, underneath...

Even the crash of fine china against the wall, the smash of priceless blown glass from the other side of the world on stone, was not enough to make him feel in control again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at that, I finally managed to spell Jaime correctly. I have fixed my grievous error last chapter. 
> 
> Sorry this took so long - the main reason is that I got carried away with writing Chapter 20 (SO EXCITED) before I finished this one. 
> 
> Secondary reasons: 12 Monkeys, a trip to Dublin, hangovers, work, life. In that order.


	20. To the Bone

The ground rumbled again like some awesome beast awakening from slumber. Petyr lost his footing and stumbled, scraping his palms against the rough stone as he fell. The air was choking, thick with smoke and the screams of those who had not found themselves far enough ahead of the destruction. He imagined he could hear the Mad Queen’s laughter as her kingdom burned.

And then the thought came, intrusive and loud: _I am going to die here._

In the dark, he shouted her name and all he could taste was ash.

~~~

“How is your wife?”

Petyr took his time to chew his meat, savouring the tender, smoked flesh. The Kingslayer had invited him to dine on fine meats and hidden agendas; he was determined to get his fill. The spread lay out before them; it would make a lesser table bow under the weight of this gluttonous feast for two.

He swallowed and sipped his wine to wash it down before he answered. “Restless."

“She is lucky she is not in chains,” the other man noted over his untouched plate.

“A cage is a cage.”

“Does the arrangement not suit?”

Petyr dabbed the grease from the corners of his mouth with a fine cloth, making sure to smear the worst of it on the embroidered Lannister sigil. “I have no complaints.”

“I must say, the fact that you have convinced Cersei to keep the girl's head on her shoulders.” Jaime raised his goblet in salute, an emphasis to his smirk. "I’m impressed.

Petyr watched the other man drain his cup, as he tilted back his head to expose his throat, as his Adam’s apple bobbed and the rich vintage slid down. He sliced another piece from the bloody steak on his plate. “And you in turn have surprised me. Do you not share your sister’s thirst for vengeance? My wife did allegedly plot to murder your _nephew_ , after all.” 

Jaime did not react, only blinked at him, unpeturbed. It was a stare that revealed nothing - not anger, not irritation, not grief. 

After a long moment, the Kingslayer signalled at the cup bearer. It was a talent all Lannisters seemed to possess; that succinct tinkling of fingers that said, ‘Go: leave the bottle.’ Waiting until the door had closed behind the boy, he turned to Petyr, his face still a study of detachment. “You seem remarkably unconcerned that your _wife_ is only months away from a death sentence,” he said. There was the smallest trace of a threat in his whisper, the lightest glancing blow, so unlike his sister's heavy-handed assaults.

A check to the periphery of his vision confirmed there was no one in the room but the two of them. He kept his voice plain. “I am concerned for my heir. Nothing more.”

The Kingslayer’s look was appraising, but he seemed amused. “The minute she dies, there is nothing protecting you. _Or_ your heir.”

“I have the Queen’s word that my son will be safe, and I shall be free to return to the Vale,” he said, placing his knife neatly down on his plate, still within easy reach.

“I find it hard to believe that you are not plotting,” he mocked. “Humble acceptance of fate does not suit you, Lord Baelish.”

“Not fate. I am merely a practical man.”

“And if that practicality means leaving them both behind to save your own skin?”

He must have paused, just a fraction before his shrug, as Jaime levelled his gaze. The sneer lost its hardness, softening into something more solemn. More truthful, and too much like pity. For the first time that evening, Petyr felt uncomfortable. He resisted the urge to look away.

When he spoke, his voice had lost all Lannister arrogance.  “She will fight for his life - as hard as any mother - the day that child is born. And so will you.” It was said as an affirmation. Plain, cold and hard – the colour of a certain man. “It may make you do something monumentally stupid.”

Petyr said nothing in reply, wary of the turn. A wall had come down, not piece by piece, stone by stone, but blown outwards by a great force. He did not need a knife, but perhaps a shield.

“It is the curse of fatherhood. You will love them with all your heart. Do anything for them, lay down your life if necessary,” he said, face pained for a second, then blank again. “And they will grow to hate you, to fear you, resent you. Just as often as they grow to love you.”

It did not need saying, of course, the Father they were discussing or the three golden-haired corpses that haunted the man’s eyes. In the quiet, Petyr moved to fill both their cups, a gesture that busied his hands and gave him respite from that gaze of raw despair.

“My own father; I don’t know if there was any room in his heart for love. Not after my mother died.” Jaime swallowed air, then wine, with all the parched desperation of his sister, of his younger brother, using the tangy liquid to numb. “I idolised him. I used to dream that one day he would turn around and tell me how proud he was of me, of my achievements. Every minute I spent training my sword, every hour of torturous schooling...every moment I worked to earn his approval. All of it. Every bit. But the only child he had time to nurture was his own legacy: the Lannister name.

“When Aerys named me as Kingsguard, it should have been a proud moment. I should have felt victorious... but I had destroyed his dream. Now what is left for his _legacy_? My sister – the "Mad" Queen, who destroys herself and everything around her with her hate? The one-handed Kingslayer? My brother, the imp, the only one left to carry on the family name?” His scoff was muffled by his cup. Had this been a lesser man, Petyr thought, it could have been a sob.

He rationalised his need to soothe the other man; this was his in-road, a way to an ally in the Capital. “He still may. Your brother is the Hand of the Queen.”

Jaime raised his head, eyes glistening with mischief. “ _The_ Queen?”

“I misspoke.”

“No...you didn’t.”

The silence was long, measuring. Heavy. Out in the night he could hear the faint sounds of the courtyard being put to bed, the stillness of the air around the Keep that could not boast the soothing melody of birdsong, the distant roar of the waves that crashed again and again, licking at the foot of this great palace.

There was no one in the room but them. The knife, glistening with rich juices, still sat on his plate within his reach.

He watched as Jaime popped a chunk of venison into his mouth, grinding down with enjoyment, his smile toothy.  “Long live the Queen.”

~~~

He found an excuse to visit the laboratory again.

On his last visit, seeing Brienne stripped bare and laid up like a fresh piece of hunt ready to be skinned and roasted, served to the slavering mouths of Lords... it had disturbed him. The woman had come into his life as an irritant, a curiosity, and became somehow ever-present, the towering girl-soldier had pledged to defend his Lady Sansa’s life with her honour and a gigantic sword. And still all that grit and noble steel had not been enough. As it never was. 

The slab was empty, scrubbed clean. Brienne was gone.

It was not the only thing that was different; Qyburn had been busy. The bottles and tubes of fizzing concoctions had been cleared away along with the patient, the walls lined with covered glass tanks and cages, and an acrid smell thickened in the air, stinging in his nostrils. Soft, shuffling noise came from behind the draped cloths, thin little scratching sounds like nails on wood.

Petyr checked his shoulder, wary of the shadow of a monstrous Clegane, then descended the last few steps into the room. He peered into the closest tank, bringing his face up close. The glass was fogged but he could make out the shadows within, where a shape coiled and slithered. He squinted, but could not make out any more than that the creature within moved with a languid crawl that made the fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickle to attention.

A feral hiss made him start and shoot back from the tank.

He turned to see two cloudy white eyes, deep in thick matted fur, glare at him through the bars of an uncovered cage. The cat hissed again, exposing fine-pointed fangs and a pink-wet tongue. The manky thing was clearly a stray – one of the dozens that prowled the back corridors of the palace, keeping the rats and mice at bay - and thin, ravaged by a life in perpetual struggle for food.

Curious now as to Qyburn’s altered focus, he moved to the cage to the right and lifted the tarpaulin. Inside, was a monkey, staring back at him with wide, inquisitive eyes. It was the kind he had seen on his travels to Essos as companions to street sellers and grifters. He had seen the like performing tricks for coin, then slipping though crowds of ogling bystanders to dip its slender paws in loose pockets and purses. The thing was no larger than the spitting cat that was his neighbour, sitting with his long curling tail about his feet.

“What does he want you for?” Petyr murmured aloud. The monkey shuffled forward, closer to the bars and held out a grasping hand. He could not help the small tug at the corner of his mouth. “I have nothing for you.”

The monkey jumped and shrieked as a large bang of a body hitting metal resounded from another shrouded cage further along the wall. Petyr flung aside the cloth to reveal the culprit: a rat the size of a watermelon gnawed at the bars, incisors like two blunted daggers diligently trying to cut their way through the steel.

“Wise to keep your distance, My Lord - that one will have your fingers off.”

Petyr turned, schooling his face, to see a placid Qyburn at the foot of the stairs, carrying a large wicker hamper and smiling benignly.

He stepped away from the cages, placing his hands behind his back. “I did not mean to intrude.”

“No need to apologise, Lord Baelish. If you’ll permit me just a moment...” The older man moved to the table and overturned his basket, pouring out a pile of chopped, bloodied mutton. At once the noise from the cages grew riotous, shrieks and caws and cries of delight.

“Now, now,” he muttered, admonishing his excited captives, “patience…”

He watched as Qyburn moved from cage to cage, revealing each creature in turn and dropping in slithers of meat, gobbled up by greedy maws. It was a menagerie: crows and cats, hounds and lizards. He left the fogged tank until last, lifting the lid and throwing in the largest piece with a swift flick of the wrist. A puff off smoking fog escaped before the top slammed down. Inside, the creature went into a frenzy, thrashing and banging the pieces of red meat against the glass.

“A blue-scaled Salamander, from Asshai. Nasty temper,” he said in answer to Petyr’s unasked question.

Petyr only nodded in reply.

“How can I be of assistance, my Lord?” said Qyburn as he wiped his bloody hands on a cloth.

He drew his eyes away from the still clattering tank and remembered his excuse. “My wife is having trouble sleeping. I was hoping you could prescribe a remedy?”

Qyburn nodded. “Natural, of course, when with child. Has she had any pains?”

“No.”

“Good, good. It would be too early…” he said, brightening. He wagged a finger. “I may have just the thing.” The older man retreated to a set of shelves and began to rattle around. “Is she faring well, the Lady Baelish?”

“She is.”

In all honesty, he had no idea how Sansa was faring – she had raised her drawbridge and retreated behind fortified walls. She would not speak to him unless he drew her out with banal questions, conscious of the black eyes of the handmaid on his back. Even then her answers were curt, conveying nothing in her monosyllables but loathing. Her eyes would never stray from her stitching, and as the days past and her pile of newly sewn swaddling clothes grew, he grew less and less convinced that she would see past the necessity of the role he was playing.

Qyburn was still rummaging and muttering. “Making new life is trying for any woman, even under…more ideal circumstances. I should expect her discomfort to grow the nearer she gets to her time.”

 _And her own execution_ , Petyr wanted to add with a snide bite, anything that would take that irritating benevolence from the Maester’s face.

“Here – two drops before bed. No more. And let me know how she gets on.”

He nodded, palming the vial and keeping his face impassive. “How goes your project for the Queen?”

Qyburn gave him a quick side look before he answered. “Better, now that I have less distraction,” he said, waving his hand at the empty slab.

Petyr frowned, a delicate thing, to cover the drop in his stomach. “The Lady Brienne?”

“Yes, the Lady was well enough to be moved.” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “A wonder, that one. Quiet a…remarkable specimen.”

Petyr noticed he had been gripping the glass vial in his hand too tight and relaxed his fingers as relief washed over him. His feet itched to run up the stairs, to be the first to deliver this news to Sansa. Would she forgive him this if she knew her Lady was alive? It was little, but even through Qyburn’s reticence he could feel a little ember of hope flare bright in his gut for the smallest of seconds.

“And you expect a full recovery?” he fished.

At first Petyr thought that the other man had not heard him, his attention wandered, but after a moment, he turned his head and blinked. “In time.”

It was only then Petyr noticed that the room was quiet. The cages silent. Even the smoking, flailing Salamander from Asshai had ceased. Qyburn held a look of great satisfaction, grim and unholy, on his face. Petyr glanced about him, eyes moving from still form, to still form behind the thin bars at the animals they held.

Every single one was dead.

~~~

Brienne screamed and railed until her voice was hoarse, until her face turned milk-white with the toll on the fresh tears in her flesh, and her flaxen hair stuck fast to her head with sweat. She was six foot of gnashing teeth behind thick steel bars, rage, and righteous fury.

His betrayal, she said. Pull his arms from their sockets, she said. Pluck his traitorous cock from his body like a limp sausage and make him choke on it. To see his bones snapped like brittle branches and crushed into dust. Would not rest, she said, until she avenged the death of her Lady.

Words and spittle that would not, could not, hurt him. But as he turned away from her cell, he felt bruised.

~~~

“It is nice to see you and my sister getting along so well.” Jaime filled both their cups with his non-golden hand.

Petyr scoffed. “Yes, a whole small council meeting with only a single threat to have my head. It is certainly progress.”

“She threatens to have the kitchen master’s head if he overcooks the meat," he said, smirking at his joke, but it was a thin veneer. He did not ever seem to speak of his sister with familial fondness, the type Petyr had observed in the likes of the Starks or the Tyrells. It was rare for the man to even speak her name aloud.

“The Lady Brienne is looking better,” Petyr noted.

The man hummed.

“Sansa wishes to see her.” She had not asked, not uttered a word, but he knew she would wish it.

“You know my sister would never allow it.”

“Does she have to know?” he asked mildly. “I am sure Brienne would appreciate the gesture.”

Jaime gave him a long look, taking his time. There was, as usual, no one in the room but them. After a moment he flicked his eyes down, away. “I will see what I can do.”

There was a space in which neither of them spoke again. A space that was vast, weighty with familiarity, while the two men supped their goblets, each mulling on some quick thought or another. This room had come to be the safest place for unguarded talk, away from the probing eyes of the Queen's spies, the sensitive ears of Qyburn's little birds.

“I have to say,” he remarked, letting his sweet wine slide a warm trail down his throat. “I have never seen such a fine recovery from such a grievous wound. Some would call it miraculous.”

The other man appraised him over his cup. “I never took you for the godly type, Lord Baelish.”

“I am certain the gods had nothing to do with it.”

“Ah, yes. Qyburn. He is an odd sort,” he said, “but he has a… talent.”

“You trust him?”

Jaime brandished his golden hand. “He likely saved my life. Or at least, my arm,” he said. “But no, I don’t trust him. He may play at being under my sister’s thrall, but he has his own agendas.”

It hadn’t made sense to Petyr at first, how a former Maester of the Citadel, a learned man, would follow this woman into the depths of her madness. But Qyburn had a presence that was unlike the vengeful insanity that Cersei stewed in; his motive was sinister, like a demon on the edges pretending to be shadows, just out of the play of the light. It was a volatile combination of souls, and it unnerved him how little understanding he had of either.

“He mentioned he was working on something for her…a project?”

“I am sure you used to be more subtle than this, Baelish,” he said.

“We had very little chance to get to know each other before.”

It was true, when Robert Baratheon’s portly arse had graced the iron throne, the two of them had turned in separate spheres. The Kingslayer was a concept to him, a man living within his own legend that bared little influence on his own machinations. Petyr had sussed the way in which to move this man within days of his arrival at court - the sister, the children, the vow. In that order. 

“Honestly? I barely even registered your existence,” Jaime said with a shrug, “which I am sure was the point.”

He only raised a brow in response. It was becoming more and more apparent that this man was more than quick sword and a golden head of hair.

Jaime sighed and held up his hands in submission. “I have no idea what she had Qyburn on with,” he said, unable to keep the hint of bitterness from his tone. “I do know that there is something going on at the Dragon Pit.”

He frowned. “It’s a ruin - full of beggars and thieves.”

“Not anymore; she had the city watch clear them out.”  The set of his shoulders belied his nonchalance. There were now certainly a few hundred more bodies in Blackwater Bay. 

“What does she want with it? It is Daenerys Targaryen who has the Dragons.”

“I was hoping _you_ would be able to tell _me_ ,” Jaime said with a grimace.

“Hardly,” Petyr said wryly, swilling his wine. “She has me busy attempting to organise trade in a bay infested with Ironborn. No right-minded business man would risk his wares here... even with the most effusive of assurances.” The city was a dried up husk, like brittle kindling in need of only a spark. And nothing in, meant nothing out.

He realised that Jaime was staring. 

“One could question whether it would be in your interest to help fill her coffers."

This was still a delicate balancing act. He had no allies here. "I don't know what you mean."

"Just an observation of my astute little brother." He swilled his wine, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "He wondered how such a savvy businessman had managed to bankrupt the Crown quite so thoroughly. Even as a Lannister, I understand the value of having some gold in the vault and not in the pockets of others."

"Robert Baratheon professed me the most successful Master of Coin in decades. As you know, he never wanted for feasts or wars or women."

"Or, so it would appear."

Petyr shrugged. “It would be very difficult to prove that were my intention."

“Of course." It was a mocking sort of assent. He smiled, humour clear. "Littlefinger; loyal servant of the crown.”

Petyr tipped his head. “Dutiful brother." 

“Yes, we do settle into out roles…”

“That we do," he agreed and drank, though he could not shake the tug of doubt low in his gut. Cersei sat him at the table with all her other stuffed puppets, but truly she only listened to the voices in her head. Petyr could not help but wonder if she were setting him up on some high stage, if only for the amusement of cutting the strings to watch his fleshy body splatter on the ground below.

~~~

The man, beaten raw, was thrown at his feet. Blood, mixed with spittle, splashed across his boots.

“A messenger, from the Targaryen whore,” Cersei announced through a warped smirk. She was gleeful.

Petyr took a tentative step away from the claret oozing towards him. “Daenerys could see the murder of her messenger as an act of war, Your Grace,” he pointed out. How he hated to simper to this woman, but she was worse than Robert in her bloody-minded want.

She did not hear him. The Queen was electrified, moving about the small council room, driven by an unnatural burning force. Her smile would flicker, full and bright, then fade beneath a wave of fearsome wrath. Her eyes flashed with the promise of vengeance,  teetering on the border of hysteria.

Her brother met his eyes; a knowing, wary look. Petyr glanced down again at the twitching wretch splayed across the flagstone. He thought that he once would have been disgusted that the man lacked the grace to die. Now, anger welled in him. But it was impotent, useful only as far as he clenching fists.

Jaime spoke, “At least tell me you interrogated the man before you had Clegane de-bone him."

Cersei blinked and wetted her lips. “He is Ironborn: one of the traitors that deserted my husband and sailed off with Yara Greyjoy,” she said, “And like all good traitors he was quick to spill his secrets.”

He tensed, then flexed his fingers to loosen them. Whatever she had gleaned had lit a fire in her, and it did not sit well the way she stared at him with bright, fascinated eyes.

Qyburn interjected, stemming the flow of the Queen’s excitement. “We know now that the rumours are true; Yara Greyjoy’s fleet, the Dornish and the North have aligned themselves with Daenerys Targaryen’s cause. Her army is ten times our own." His tone was measured, those probing pale eyes never leaving Petyr’s face.

Petyr fixed his gaze on a droplet of blood that ran in the grooves between the stones. His heart pounded in his throat. He waited for the foul, rotten stench that signalled Clegane’s presence to settle around him.

“And still no word from Snow?” Jaime's voice again, either attempting to postpone his imminent death or to prolong his agony.

Qyburn replied, after a moment, “No word.”

“Lord Baelish, it appears you over-estimated his love for the Lady Sansa,” Cersei drawled, and he looked up to meet her glittering eyes. She was still grinning madly, jaw open like she would consume him. “Perhaps he does not like his women despoiled? Perhaps we should hurry the process along – cut that child out of her and send her head to the Wall?”

It was _meant_ to antagonise him, every little pin prick of her words, to draw him out and reveal his soft under-belly that she could sink her teeth into. Did she have an inkling he cared for his wife, despite how hard he worked every day in this wretched place to convince her otherwise? He knew he had not let his mask slip, not one moment where he could be observed. And now perhaps she knew more. All the little truths he had kept from her the only things left of him that he had not been stripped of at the city gates, as he skirted his pledges of fealty with his lies. The pulp of a man at his feet could have revealed far more than blood and screams and viscera.

There was still the notable absence of her most foul, violent guard. If he were to be carried off and tortured for his secrets, where was that heavy, dead hand on his shoulder?

His voice was steady as he answered. “He may be a bastard, but he is as foolishly noble as his father. The fact that we have heard nothing in response to the threat on his sister's life makes me believe that the boy is likely dead.” 

Cersei only smiled. Her gaze appraised him, sizing up his meat. Like a trapped hare, he stilled himself – a last desperate attempt to remain unseen by the snarling, starving predator circling his only escape route.

But then the moment passed and she turned her head to address the Maester. “Send the pieces of this traitor back to her. Let the Targaryen cower on Dragonstone.”

He wanted to spout the simpering stock of phrases he kept for foolish leaders and rash Kings: _it would be unwise, Your Grace. We should not be hasty, My Lord._ _A more profitable option, My Queen._ But he remained silent, waited instead for her brother jump to his feet in objection, to temper her rashness.

But Jaime said nothing. And he said nothing. The tingle at his nape was a warning, that his sight was partially obscured. There was a piece of the whole, something essential, that he could not see. This play was a display for his benefit, a blatant show that his position was precarious. He was blind.

Qyburn’s eyes slid from man to man to Queen before he cleared his throat to ask the obvious question. “And if she decides to attack, Your Grace?”

“Let her come.”

~~~

“She is plotting something.”

“Yes,” Petyr said with patience, as much as the same thought was irking him too, “but what?”

“I have no idea!” Jaime gritted his teeth in frustration. “She does not confide in me anymore – only that crack Qyburn and his little birds. It’s all secrets and whispers. Her guards and servants are so silent you’d think she’d cut out their tongues!”

Petyr had found much the same; no bribe was worth whatever awaited the disloyal down in the dungeons.

Jaime paced the length of the table. He had not touched a morsel of the laden feast. “And no word from the Armada on our doorstep. What is that Targaryen woman up to?”

“Waiting to see if the city will collapse from the inside,” he suggested, lounging back in his seat as a contrast to the other man's frenetic ire. He kept his voice calm, level. “Euron’s men are like a disease. There is no way to get trade in to the port, we are not making or selling anything of worth. Even the whores are used up, pox-ridden things. Soon there will be nothing left to defend and we will have to retreat to Highgarden. It would be the perfect time to attack.”

“Do you really think Snow is dead?” 

Jaime’s question hung in the silence. For weeks they had danced around this; his motivations, his allegiance. And Petyr had tried to probe the limits of this man's own loyalties, in turn testing the fragility of the last of this golden pride. If his instincts were true, here was Sansa's - his own - salvation. If not, he truly may as well swing the sword for his wife's beheading himself.

“You know she _will_ kill her,” Jaime pressed in response to his reticence. “It does not matter how much you try to stall, you are not going to convince her otherwise.”

True, but he had bought them valuable time. Time that was quickly running out with every day they got closer to war. Cersei’s fingers itched with the desire to exact her revenge, only the thought that she could bring the North to heel was tempering her bloodlust. She dangled the executioner’s sword over Sansa’s head, and it would take only the lightest change of winds to loosen her grip.

And yes, the two of them, perhaps the only two in the castle knew how much he would do with that threat. It had never been said aloud. And Jaime had been right, all those weeks ago – if he could not figure out Cersei’s machinations, find his equilibrium before she initiated an ill-advised war against the Dragon Queen, he was likely to do something very, very stupid.

Petyr challenged him in return. “And if Daenerys storms the city, will you defend your Queen?”

Jaime’s good hand gripped the back of his chair until his knuckles turned white, stark against the gilded frame. “She is my sister,” he ground out, voice tight.

It was not an answer to his question, but he let it lie. 

It took him only a second to make his decision, to throw the last of his coin down with his final hand.

“She will be expecting it to be easy,” Petyr said quietly, not meeting the man’s gaze for fear of what he would give away, “for the City Watch and any other defence to lay down their arms and switch sides the minute they lay their eyes on that first dragon.”

Jaime's brow furrowed in response to his certainty. “How do you know this?”

Petyr dropped his gaze to his hands, the rings that circled his fingers. His wedding band, still polished and gleaming in the candlelight, sat warm against his skin. He rubbed at a non-existent tarnish as he waited.

“You knew..." The other man's voice was a whisper, barely louder than the crackle of the fire in the grate. "You knew about the alliance with the North." A pause, again, and his voice was only barely louder than the lull. "You planned this.”

He grimaced. “Not quite _this_ ,” he admitted. He had certainly not meant to leave himself or Sansa so vulnerable. His wife and son were meant to be safe and warm behind the fortifications of the Vale, with whole mountains to protect them, before he had come to this terrible place. “There were meant to be fewer…complications. For one, I have not bought a single guard even though I count out their coin. I have had no communication with the North since we left White Harbour. Your sister has seen to it that I am watched, every second. Daenrys Targaryn will come with her army..."

“And Cersei will not surrender," Jaime finished. "It will be a massacre.”

Yes, that at least was undeniable. And here he was standing behind the wrong line.

Jaime looked lost, a man without bearings, clinging to the shreds of what he used to understand. The man had a humanity - dare he say it, honour - that few possessed. Now all of it, everything that mattered to him in this world, depended on whether the Kingslayer could summon that from the depths of his mourning. In the shadow of this grief, Petyr did not dare bring himself to hope. 

“So, when the time comes…” 

After a long, quiet moment, Jaime nodded. “When the time comes.”

It was not an answer, but the man that called himself a Lannister seemed weighed down by the weight of his gold, more than eager to shed his debt to this world.

~~~

The frozen grass crunched beneath his boots, his breath steamed before him and it took only a few minutes of exposure for the cold to reach his bones.

He kept coming here, to this place of the old gods in a godless kingdom, drawn in by the sense of the familiar. Of the other.

Petyr had never seen a Winter in King’s Landing, his first foray to the city had come on the heels of the of the Great Summer. As Robert Baratheon’s Master of Coin, he had known only warmth; a noon sun so hot he would seek out the shade of his brothel, buried beneath thick perfumed air and expanses of smooth, oiled skin.

But the change of seasons had come now in earnest, and it bit at him.

The hearts tree had no qualms with the weather. If anything, its scrawny face had softened into a satisfied gape, roots burrowing deep into the frigid ground, relishing the long-forgotten chill on its rough bark.

He stared into its eyes, with a fervent will that he might be seen by deep brown eyes a hundred leagues away. That the boy with the old soul could feel his resolve. In the Godswood, Brandon Stark has asked him to protect her. In the Godswood he had promised he would try. 

 _Are you listening? Can you see her?_ _Can you save us?_

He thought on the other brother too, the dour King with the world weighing heavy on his furred shoulders. A man strung together by the pieces of Ned Stark’s honour and the tatters of his shame - a horrible contradiction of being – at the other end of the world. From him, there was nothing but silence; an unkindness of ravens soaring to the clouded heavens with words of his sister’s peril, never to return.

Where was the man now? Still fending the off the unnatural souls that crept in from the North to consume the realm? Perhaps Jon Snow was now as his namesake, a frozen creature beneath the ice. Or, one of thousands of lost soldiers in an endless army of the dead.

Petyr knew men like him - had stood on the faces of men like him to get to the top - he knew them well. The King in the North would come if he could, riding on a wave of a good and noble cause. If the fates were kind, an army of Northmen would descend on this city tomorrow, trampling the desiccated remains of King’s Landing underfoot like charcoal. Was it too late and too much to hope that fate would align to arrange such a feat?

As his answer, the wind whipped and mocked him with a carried bleat of livestock.

He took off one glove, then the other, tucking them both into his belt and moved closer to the tree offering the pale tender flesh of his palms. He held his breath. _W_ _illed_ the proper reverence forth. Willed it with every part. Pressing his hands to the rough bark, he begged his body to summon the belief that could connect a man to spirits beyond this world.

But he only grew stiff with the cold and his muscles began to seize in his prostrate position. Moving back, his bare fingers brushed against something in the mouth of the hearts tree; a tiny roll of parchment, sticky with sap. Curious, he pulled it out and unfurled the small scrap, taking care not to rip the paper where it was damp.

When he realised what he was seeing, his breath caught.

There, sketched in thin black ink, was the symbol of her House, jaws stretched wide: a Direwolf. And on her head, a little companion mockingbird grooming and pecking in the warmth of the fur. Underneath, her tight, neat script: ‘ _know how to move them’_.

His desperate fingers felt again within the hollow for more. He pulled another note, then another and another, drenched and stuck together with dried red globules but all still baring the faint scratches of her quill. With each one, his heart beat faster, his blood ran hot and thick and fast until he could no longer feel the nip and sting of the cold.

At the foot of the hearts tree, Petyr fell to his knees and thanked the gods.

~~~

She had been waiting for him as he left the Maidenvault this morning readied for the day. Bedecked in every finery, chin raised. Crowned. A inscrutable smile sat on her painted lips as her Maester gave the orders to to the guard.

The Dragon Queen was here.

Without warning he was walled by her white-cloaked entourage, and they moved him forth, like a human cage; moved him down, below, down, down, where all he could smell was damp. The tunnel, after a while, ended in a portal of light, throwing harsh shadows onto the walls of the passage. He felt as though he marched to his own execution, the echoes of his boot-steps off the stone a skeletal dirge. He emerged into weak sunlight, trailing a step behind Cersei and her small council.

He blinked, letting his eyes adjust and looked out over the expanse of the Dragonpit.

Once, long ago, the great domed roof had been the barrier between its fearsome captives and the sky, lined with wrought sculptures of the Targaryen sigil, hewn in black stone. Now collapsed inward, the place was exposed to the cool, winter sun. Along the walls, jutted grey grotesques with their over-large heads, mouths wide as if screaming. Those wretched, wrinkled face were the guardians of the Pit, once the only protection that stood between the city and the fiery charges that lay within, ready to open their maws and douse the place with seawater.

In the centre, there was once a hole in the earth deep enough to swallow the tallest tower of the Red Keep, its bottom strewn thick with the remains of thousands of cattle, boar, and lame horse. Cersei’s men had been busy as now the chasm was boarded over fully with wooden slats, all evidence of the squatters cleared away. A pile of freshly culled sheep carcasses had been amassed in the centre, a delicious gift for the Targaryen Woman’s pets.

They stood with Cersei on the stone platform that overlooked the pit, once the place where the Pit Master would fling the dragon's feed into the depths below, watching in flashes of flame in the darkness as the beasts tore apart their meal.

It was the perfect arena for the grandstanding of self-proclaimed Queens.

A horn blasted long and loud from beyond the walls and the great gate began to rise. He noted the smirk that played at the edges of Cersei’s mouth. His pulse begin to skitter. He was grateful once again for the absence of Clegane, but it was the kind of gratitude a beaten dog gives an owner when it is fed.

“I have decided you shall be my envoy, Lord Baelish,” she said as though amused at a joke he did not understand.

“Your Grace?”

“Yes I need someone with a talent for negotiation. And since you are _so good_ at brokering agreements…”

He willed his composure. Only years and years and years of practice gave him the semblance of calm. “Your Grace, I am good at brokering agreements when I understand the terms. When I have had time to prepare-“

She cut him off. “An opportunity, then, for you to demonstrate your much-professed loyalty to the Crown.” Her words were punctuated with the metallic shink of a sword drawn from its scabbard. He could sense the point of a blade at his back. 

The Targaryen entourage began to file through the huge doors, whole now and reinforced with steel. The host was large – perhaps three hundred men, and much the same as those in White Harbour of all different races and styles, under one banner, united together for their Queen. Those same foreign men with dark skin and hard eyes, the Unsullied, marched into the dome with unnerving discipline. At the head of the train, were a dozen men on horses - the Dothraki - all indistinct apart from one rotund knight, the only one armoured completely head-to-toe, with a simple helm covering his face.

They stopped short of the boarded covering of the pit.

Daenerys was nowhere in sight. Neither was there any sign of her cocky, little Hand of the Queen.

Just as he sensed Cersei begin to grow irate at the snub, the attention of the Lannister party around him was drawn to the sky. Petyr turned his head up, knowing what was likely about to descend.

And yes, there, silhouetted against the grey cloud, came the soaring outline of the Targaryen sigil. Scales of pearlescent white glinted like opals glinting in the weak, winter sun, and perched behind the beast’s great head, was The Dragon Queen. She circled once, twice, and then urged the beast down, landing with a soft thump on the dirt. Who needed a towering platform as a statement of power when one had a dragon?

Daenerys, herself, was a startling sight to behold. She had the bright, white hair that promised Targaryen blood pumped hot through her veins. Petyr could recall the sight of Rhaegar on his horse all those years ago unseating Barristan Selmy. It had made his childish heart pound with arousal. Rhaegar was true knight like in his dreams, like the stories, but fully-fleshed on horseback before him.

Now his younger sister sat astride her impossible beast, with men falling to submission with every step she took across the lands beyond the Narrow Sea. Here was the last seed of the Mad King, of a lineage that had made and destroyed the Seven Kingdoms. A child of Old Valyria. 

But it was not just her striking beauty; it was the way the world seemed to bend around her in ripples of subjugation and awe. This was a Queen - a ruler, a leader- in every sense. Come from nothing. Who had made men, armies, kings bow in fealty.

Cersei was a hollowed-out mockery in comparison.

Daenerys dropped to the ground with grace, and walked to stand at the head of her host. The dragon growled in delight, then flapped in three large bounces to the bloody mutton, punctuating his cries with gleeful bursts of roasting flame and ripping flesh. A girl with the singing lilt of Slaver’s Bay, reeled off her titles, carrying faint across the vast space:  _"Daenerys Stormborn, Ruler of Meereen, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons and Rightful Queen of the Andals and the Seven Kingdoms."_

With every word a muscle ticked in Cersei’s jaw.

Then the Mad Queen nodded, and the guard at his back pressed forward. "Serve me well, Lord Baelish." 

As he descended the crumbling steps into the pit he had to remind his pounding heart and dry mouth that this was a treaty – a peaceable act – and he was a dutiful messenger. The woman he was about to meet was a reasonable, honourable ruler. He tried not to think on the face of the last messenger he had seen.

He approached, walking over the wooden boards and passing close to the pale dragon, tucking merrily into his flesh. The men behind her stood quite still, spears pointed skywards. As he got closer, the dumpy knight dismounted his horse with a rattle and moved quickly to stand at the shoulder of his Queen. 

Approaching as close as he dared, he bowed low. “Your Grace, it is an honour.”

“You murdered one of my men," she said without preamble.

“Queen Cersei did not like what he had to say.”

He knelt still, one knee planted firmly in the dirt. The only weapon he had was the dagger at his hip and his wits. “He came offering terms of peace. I do not wish for any more blood to be spilled.”

Yes, he had heard she was one of the noble ones, the righteous ones. And here she was walking into the city to negotiate with a mad woman. 

He said nothing, eyes lowered. He listened to the dragon crunch the bones at his back.

Her voice was full of power when she spoke. “My terms are the same, to relinquish control of this city, of her claim to the Seven Kingdoms, pledge her fealty to me, the rightful, lawful Queen of this realm, and I will allow her to live out her days in comfortable exile.”

A soft flutter of her hand indicated that she would allow him to rise and answer, so he was obedient. “Queen Cersei has her own terms," he said. "She would like to see Tyrion Lannister executed, for murdering her son and father.”

Her brow furrowed in offence. “Tyrion Lannister is my loyal hand.”

"Yes, Your Grace, we have met. He is very loyal, indeed."

At that, she raised a derisive brow. 

The dumpy, awkward knight moved to whisper in her ear and Petyr had to work to fight his smirk. It was certainly not one of his better disguises. “Lord Petyr Baelish, Your Grace, Lord Protector of the Vale and Lord Paramount of the Riverlands.”

The girl pursed her lips, clearly remembering whatever brief she had been given on his reputation. “My Hand informed me that your House was aligned with the North and therefore I would find an ally in you. It looks to me you are quite comfortable here.”

“Your Grace-“ he began, but she cut him off with an imperial wave of her hand.

“I have neither the time nor the patience for your lies, Lord Baelish. The only thing I wish to know is if you advise your Queen?”

 “I do.”

“Then advise her that this is not a request. If she refuses, it will force my hand and I shall take the city by force.” It was not hard to imagine how all those great rulers in Essos must have quivered in their slave-built fortresses. She _was_ formidable.

But foolish if she thought this was all going to plan.

"I can say with all certainty that she _will_ refuse. And many will die."

"Are you threatening me?"

He opened his mouth to speak again but was cut off by the gruff, badly obscured voice from under the helm of the soldier. “Where is Sansa Stark?”

It was like the suffocating smog of his existence these past weeks cleared, lifted away into the grim, grey sky. The fact that _he_ knew, the fact that he had mentioned her by name - she was important, to Jon Snow's alliance, to the armies that waited at these gates. It was the answer to the question he had been asking only silence. He tried to let the relief show, blatant and unadulterated by webs of deceit, hoping the hefty helm on the other man's face would not impair his rapier gaze. “Queen Cersei holds my wife prisoner,” he said.

And gods, he hoped that was the truth.

The Targaryen women looked between him and her odd knight, shifting away from her earlier aggression. “If you release her, it would be a show of good faith. I would be willing to negotiate more favourable terms.”

Yes, he thought, Sansa must still be very important indeed.

“The Queen wishes to have her executed for her treasons against the crown."

Daenerys’ brow furrowed, lips pursing in a moue of disgust. “She is your wife.”

"She is," he answered. He opened his mouth with the sudden urge to defend his position, to offer up his truth to this true Queen in the hope that she would listen and have mercy. That she would understand his position. Cersei’s reluctance to meet the girl face to face had afforded him the opportunity – the Mad Queen had no spies here, no little birds to hear his confession - he could tell all and be swept under the safe and waiting wings of the Mother of Dragons. But Sansa was still caught tight in the Mad Queen's claws, and he could not afford to step wrong, as much as he too was held here against his will. And only way to keep them both safe was to step backward into the lion's den, heel first into the decrepit shadows. 

He was about to attempt to simper his way into some favourable grace when the dragon let out a low, keening whine. Daenerys’ head whipped to the call of her child.

Petyr turned too. He sensed the spears and swords drawn to arms behind him. The beast moaned again - a noise like the creaking apart of a galley overcome by the waves - then stumbled onto a wing, crumpling awkwardly underneath its massive weight. Dust flew up in a great cloud as the dragon hit the floor.

“Viserion!” she cried, starting towards the dragon, pain and worry etched in her beautiful features. The beast groaned again, making a feeble attempt to stand but failing once more. Daenerys rounded on him, furious. “What have you done?” she growled, teeth bared. And there, _there,_  was the fire and the blood and three hundred years of Targaryen wrath.

Panicked, he turned and looked up at the walled dais. Flanked by her men, Cersei's smile curdled, cold in his veins. For a second, she held his gaze, and even from this distance he could see the hot delight at her victory, before she swept away with a turn of her black skirts, back into the tunnel. The door clanged shut behind the last guard. He felt his stomach clench. They were trapped. 

_It was that moment again and Brandon Stark's greatsword was aloft above his head._

One of the Unsullied was shouting orders, men swarming around their in choreographed dance of steel and sinew, shield and spears moving in graceful unison. Daenerys had lost her interest in him and fought against her own throng towards Viserion, still roaring and crying for his mother, making sounds that were pitiful for a beast that size.

Two of the soldiers moved forward to seize him, but stopped short, wobbling on their feet. The pebbles strewn across the ground began to rattle as though shivering with the cold. A great rumbling resonated through the ground, as if the earth were taking a deep, drawing breath into its lungs. 

And from the skies fell a great black dread with beating wings. The third dragon, twice as large as his brothers, screaming in unrestrained fury.

He couldn't see her behind the wall of her army, held in tight formation despite the rising sense of frenzy. But he heard her cry of fear. "Drogon, no!"

The ground thundered and swelled upwards and he found his own two feet could not keep him upright and he was knocked to the trembling floor. He noticed that beneath his hands, the bare dirt was warm. The heat travelled through his skin to burn his bones.

A flash of light momentarily blinding. A strong, hot gust of wind singed his face.

The column of flames shot from beneath the platform that covered the old pit, evaporating the wood and enveloping Viserion's white skin in a violent green sheath. The beast was consumed, his crumpled, pallid form dragged down by the grasping fingers of hell. Petyr watched in horror as the black dragon tried to dive to save his brother, apparently no match for the fierce burning blast of wild fire. Viserion’s last screech of pain as he fell was weak, a haunting sound that wrenched the ear until it faded into nothing.

Drogon roared, adding his own gut-wrenched fire to those that climbed the walls, spread the floors, of the arena in green.

All the while, men ran and screamed and shouted and melted aflame.

With force, Petyr pulled himself to his feet and ran, ran like he had only this little life left in him, struggling against the ground that reeled like a ship in a storm. Atop the walls, great chunks of stone tumbled and fell, crashing down to his left, to his right, blocking his path. 

One of the Unsullied made a grab for his cloak, the tip of his spear glancing off Petyr’s cheek but the earth roared again and shook the soldier off-balance, tearing the fabric. The man righted himself and made for a second lunge, but his face was replaced suddenly with the sneering mug of a landing gargoyle. The soldier oozed out beneath the heavy black stone. 

Petyr glanced up at the place the ugly head had dislodged from, to a hole in the wall not more than seven foot above his head with a mass of rubble at the base.

He glanced back at the dais to the way he had come in, the gate solid tight, and the stairs that led down to the ground level crumbling with force of the shaking ground. Behind him the flames grew as they fed on the Targaryen army, gorging on air and dragon meat. The black beast Drogon had landed somewhere behind the rising fires, still adding his own distress to the noise.

His mind staggered with his feet; he tried to think on Sansa and what the Mad Queen had done with his wife and child, tried to grasp for a rational, reasonable, thought. But his ability for cool detachment had dissolved much the same as the faces of the Unsullied men devoured by the wildfire.

And there was no _time_.

He looked back one last time as everything was consumed. The Mother of Dragons rose into the air on Drogon's back.

Petyr clambered up the stones, paying no mind to how they cut his hands, his knees. With every second he could feel the heat at his back grow. At the top of the pile he was only just able to grasp the edges of the tunnel, his rings digging painfully into his fingers. He jumped for the gap, heaving himself into the opening until his body was cosseted by the cold dark stone.

The outlet was only large enough for him to crawl on his stomach, dragging himself forward into blackness but with every foot he gained, the hammering of his heart slowed and the scorching fires that licked at his feet lessened.

But the stricken face of Daenerys Targaryen as she clung to the scales of her black beast, forced to leave her dying dragon like a mother rent from her child, was seared like a brand.

Then there was a sound, a wrenching snap. Beneath him, the floor of the tunnel gave way and he tumbled into the black.

_{know how to move them}_

He returned from the Godswood like a small, gleeful child, face flushed from the frozen air and tense with excitement. Her chambers were lit and a fire burned dutifully in the hearth, but they were empty.

“Sansa?” he called but there was no sign of her, or the pithy maid.

He took off his cloak, letting the warmth of the room soothe him and moved with curious fingers about his wife’s home. She had changed little, preferring to preserve her sense of captivity, of not belonging in this place, and he had little opportunity to come and see her these past weeks, keeping to his own part of the Maidenvault for fear of giving himself away with a glance, or a word.

On the bureau lay a small stack of folded cloth, awaiting the arrival of their son. He stroked the soft cloth, running his fingers over the deep green mockingbird embroidered in the corner by her own hand. A sign he had seen as a bloody-minded act, for why would a man such as him let her stitch anything but his symbol, his mark? But perhaps it was a declaration.

He smiled again. His clever wife.

On the chaise, her velvet dress, the one that she had worn the night she had announced that she was with child, and he had been mad, furious, at the way she had wrested control from his fingertips. It was worn at the elbows, and he noticed a small tear on the skirt. Her sewing things were strewn across the table, her box of trinkets and buttons and thread opened like a treasure chest overflowing with gold.

The untidiness was unlike his fastidious wife, so careful with these things that gave her focus. Purpose. He supposed she was away with her maid, or spending time chatting through the bars with Brienne. Perhaps, too, speaking in code to the giant woman, making the formidable soldier understand. His beautiful, wonderful, clever little wife. 

He folded his hand around the note in his pocket, crinkling the parchment, savouring the promise it held. The thought made his chest warm. How long had she been stealing these missives down to the Godswood, under the guise of prayer? How long had she torn her hair in frustration at his thick-headedness? She had trusted in him all along and only played her part better than he.

With a mischievous urge, he stripped away the layers of his doublet and his shirt, leaving only his smallclothes, and slipped into her bed to await her return. He curled himself up like a babe, into the sheets that smelled of lemon soap. He clutched the soft fabric in his fists, thinking of the way in which Sansa’s fingers would slip neat between his own.

_Tomorrow he would meet the Dragon Queen, would hear what she had to say. He hoped she was merciful. Perhaps she would allow him to love his wife and child the way that they deserved, in a place far away from this war, once again out from under the oppressive, rotting thumb of King’s Landing. If he could negotiate with his silver tongue, press the trust that she had in Tyrion Lannister, his reunion with Sansa would b-_

 

A strong hand shot out and wrenched him to his feet. The smoke stung his vision and he could only see the blurred outline of someone…tall.

“We need to go. Now.” He was being dragged, wrenched painfully away from his safe, curled-up space. His chest _hurt_.

“Sansa?”

The voice grunted. “The Queen has her.” _Which one?_ He wanted to say. _Which Queen._ They both reign over death it seems. “In here.”

He was shoved without ceremony against a wall. He could not tell whether he was inside or out. The air was black, thick with hanging dust.

“Here,” a sword was pressed into his hands and it was too heavy.

“We need to get out of the city. Tell me how.”

He was aware of the words and their meaning, but he could not seem to wrap his mind around them. There was a warm, wet something that was almost certainly blood running down his face, pouring from a hole in his temple.

His chin was forced into a harsh grip and he met green eyes. “Baelish!”

It was only then he recognised the sooted face of Jaime Lannister, his golden hair turned grey with ash. The man was usually so impeccable, that the incongruity startled him into speech. “The tunnels… there are- underneath... they lead out of the city.” Handsome, dashing knight in armour, come to save him. A damsel.

“Where to?”

“I-“ Smoke, pain, darkness. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” he said, wiping a streak of dust across his mouth with his good hand, “we will have to take our chances. Which way?”

Again, his mind seemed to stutter with every attempt to make a link. Behind his back: sharp, damp stone. Above his head: groaning and roaring and trembling earth. A sound at his feet: water, flowing. He indicated the stream follow downhill and Jaime nodded, forging ahead without a backwards glance. On some instinct, Petyr followed.

Piece by piece, awareness trickled in. The first fully coherent thought he had was that his feet were wet. The second, that they were wading through shit. His eyes watered, tears fell in rivulets down his face. The air was hot and every breath ached in his chest. 

Every few seconds the ground shook, dust crumbled down from above and loose rubble splashed into their boggy path. Up ahead, there was a dimness that could be daylight, or a trick of the muffled sconces smothered in the choking filth.

The tunnel spat them out, spluttering into smoke and blinding smog. Onto rough, sharp stone. They scrambled up steep shale, trying to gain height, to find clean air to breathe. Hands and knees and slipping toes. At the top, they reached a bluff, one of the high natural walls of Blackwater Bay and the faint breeze pooled like cool silk in his burning lungs.

It was impossible not to stare. And this time when the earth dropped out from beneath him, his feet remained still planted firmly on the ground.

This, _this_ , would be Cersei’s legacy.

The whole city of King’s Landing was lost in hellish, green fire. In the harbour, ships burned. In the streets, people burned. The sky choked on the billowing clouds of soot and ash, smothering the land until the furthest reaches of the horizon. Screams faded to groans faded to nothing, but the crackle of the flames feasting on the former glory of this city... and the Red Keep melted like a candle, waxy stone dripping down to hiss into the waves.

There was a cold touch on his cheek, the lightest icy kiss, and he looked up. Through the smoke, the first flakes of winter snow fell from the blackened sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /ACT TWO
> 
> This has been a while coming for a number of long, boring reasons. But at least it was a fairly robust offering. Poor Viserion.
> 
> Merry Christmas!
> 
> *edited 60,000 times after posting, cos well tired.


	21. The Gold Weight of Honour

“Where are we going?”

He was met with brittle silence. The wind tossed the stinging snow and smoke, and whipped at the frayed edges of his cloak. The waves rose and fell, lapping the rocks then ebbing, apathetic to the scorched Blackwater Bay.

The fires, ravenous, feasted.

After a vast and stretching time, his face illuminated only by the flames that used to be King’s Landing, Jaime answered, “I have a man." He paused. Tightened. Then strode away on a stiff gait. There was no backwards glance at his sister’s city.

Petyr followed and they moved onwards. North. For what else was there to do? What else was he to do but follow him? This man who had hauled him from the embers like a helpless babe from between a dead mother’s legs.

He did not know what he had expected. Perhaps a great, snaking line of refugees trudging up the King’s Road, some burdened with a lifetime’s wares, some – like the two of them – with just the clothes on their back. But they passed only a smattering of men and women, some clutching small children close. Bleeding, broken, burned. The only difference between himself and those wretches, was the gold-set jewels that ringed his fingers, obscured now beneath a thick film of soot.

He could not look on their faces too long, feverish stares and reddened eyes, bodies that stumbled from the pyre that was once King’s Landing. The fear prickled in the hairs at his nape; he was surrounded by walking dead men. Did they even have a destination? Would these lost souls walk and walk and walk til their feet could no longer carry their rotting corpses?

The Kingslayer fell into the same funereal stupor; shoulders slack, green eyes watery with the sting of the smoke, throat bobbing in intermittent gulps, putting one foot in front of the other out of necessity.

And no words were passed.

The snow fell in flurries, mixing with the ash to a grey-wet slush underfoot. Petyr’s arm tired and his fingers went stiff with the cold, but he would not drop his borrowed sword. The boots that were not meant for travel rubbed sore against the soft skin of his feet.

In the end, the tavern was not far, just under a day on foot and close enough to the city that the air still hung with acrid smoke. The stout building would have seemed ramshackle, a hovel, less than a night before, but as the sun fell and the sky darkened further, it looked a beacon of warmth. Of sanctuary.

Inside, it was sullen; drinkers watched their tankards with bleary eyes.  No one sang, or played or even so much as banged a cup down too loud. Even the buxom wench that shuffled between tables, pouring her ale could not muster a comely smile.

Jaime slipped a golden dragon to a mercenary by a door, and they were led through to a back room. It was simple, and it was heavenly. The fire roared, the hay-stuffed cot beckoned and atop a sideboard, ale fizzed contentedly in its pitcher.

A rakish man sat in a straight-backed chair, legs spread wide, sharpening his longsword. The gleaming metal a stark contrast to his appearance; a rough collection of beaten leather, unwashed hair, and scars. He glanced up.

“Good, you’re alive,” he said.

“Pleased to see me?”

“Pleased to see your purse, Lannister.”

A look was shared between the two men, one that told a virile tale of comradery, of brotherly bonds forged in many-a manly adventure. It was the type of sentiment that he used to disdain; Littlefinger would have suppressed the urge to curl a lip or roll his eyes, all while making a clever note of a new target at which he could aim his pressure-point.

Now, he was only grateful to be in the company of allies.

It took him a second to place the face, the accent, the worked eyebrow of impatient indifference: this was Tyrion’s old sellsword companion, named Ser Bronn of the Blackwater the same time he had been handed his Lordship of Harrenhal.

“Well,” Bronn said, “you two look like shit.”

Petyr glanced again at Jaime’s soot-streaked face, more black than skin showing. His golden crown of Lannister hair completely obscured underneath the thick dusting of grey ash. It made him look old and tired, like tarnished gold. Glancing down at himself, he saw the torn doublet, his scraped palms crusted in blood, and the dirt deep beneath his fingernails. His cheek felt too tight, and now in the warmth of the room pain flared where the fire had singed his skin.

“Ser Bronn-” he started.

“Just Bronn will do, m’lord.” The former sellsword stood and replaced his steel in the hilt at his waist. “I enjoy killing far too much to be a real Knight.”

Some of Jaime’s daze cleared in the wake of reflexive courtesy. “This is Lord Petyr Baelish.”

“Yeah, know who he is,” Bronn said, eyes lingering a little too long on the mockingbird pin at his throat. “I probably kept you in fancy silks back in the day, amount of money I spent in your place. Right shame you lost those brothels; closest I’ve ever come to shedding a tear when I heard those pious, bare-foot, twats tore it down.”

Petyr nodded in agreement. He felt surreal, like the dustless shadow of an heirloom moved. It was as if Bronn spoke of another man and another life, one he had once read of in a book. The tale of a familiar tome well-loved and often sought, but only a fiction none-the-less; he did not feel like he was _Littlefinger_. That man, who once was, who would relish the thought of his reputation proceeding him.  _Littlefinger_ would delight in Bronn’s wary gaze, revel in the sellsword's hand that lingered near his hilt. Petyr forced himself to smirk, as Littlefinger would do, dredging it from his depths. “A terrible shame, I agree. Some men have no appreciation for the finer things in life.”

Jaime threw him a look, a question in his bloodshot eyes, but said nothing.

“So, are you two gonna tell me why half of King’s Landing is on fire?”

“It was a trap,” Jaime croaked, his words broken like his voice. “For Daenerys Targaryen.” He rubbed a hand across his face, smearing the dust and blood like crude war paint, and collapsed into the chair. Petyr could not help but think of a flame snuffed out by dirt.

Bronn frowned at his friend, then looked to Petyr. “The Dragon Queen attacked?”

“No. It was meant to be a parlay to negotiate terms of surrender. But…Cersei must have known…” he said, and the words would not stop. “In the North, there was a plan; I was meant to ingratiate myself with Cersei, buy the City Watch, undermine her authority so that when an army came to take the city there would be no fight. But I failed. I was…distracted.” His chest ached, stinging like his burnt skin in the heat of the room. “She planted wildfire beneath the Dragon Pit. And sent me to negotiate. To my death.”

“Is she dead - the Targaryen?”

He shook his head. “She flew away on one of her dragons. The other perished.” He could still hear her, pleading to be taken back to her dying child, the wrought cries of a grieving mother. He was unsure why it bothered him so. “But her men were trapped and many died. She will want vengeance.”

Bronn let out a long, low whistle. “Not a woman you want to piss off.”

Petyr was unsure which woman he spoke of, but either way he was inclined to agree. “Cersei fled with her Queensguard. We don’t know where she has gone or what move she is planning next."

Jaime stirred, shifting his eyes from the hearth. “Which is why we need your help.”

“I gathered as much.” Bronn moved to the side board and helped himself to a large cup of strong ale. “Where are we going, what are we doing and how much am I getting paid?”

“After my sister. She has fled the capital and we believe she has hostages.”

“Great. Another rescue mission? Who’s gone?”

Jaime answered. “Sansa Stark.”

“Oh for-“ Bronn ran a hand over his face, muttering a pulp of profanity. “ _That_ fucking girl. Are you _sure_ Cersei’s got her? I’m not going haring off after some dead woman.”

“I…” Petyr faltered, unable to speak around the sudden hand that choked his throat; he had not considered the possibility that she might be dead, crushed beneath rubble in King’s Landing, flames licking her delicate skin to crisp, black dust. He had not thought that his son’s life might be ended before it had even chance to begin. He had not even-

 _Dead, blank, eyes…step after step after step._ He felt the sharp scrape of the god’s cruelty as it began to hollow him out. Another empty body to march up the King’s Road. All of it, all of this, for nought-

“-needs her as a hostage.” Jaime was speaking, a little vigour returning to his tone. And yes, yes. He could lash himself to the certainty in the other man’s voice. A solid post, steadied in firm ground. He bunched his hands in the fabric of his cloak clinging to its presence in this room. “Cersei won’t kill her, not now. Sansa Stark is too valuable.”

“The woman blew up the Sept of Baelor and razed her city to the ground. I wouldn’t be so sure she’s thinking with a clear head.”

Petyr’s fingers ghosted over something in his pocket. Paper. Sansa’s note. From the godswood.

It was enough to slacken the vice around his throat.

“Cersei had Sansa taken from the Maidenvault before the parlay,”  he spoke. Yes, he thought, some of the fog clearing with the relief in his realisation. Of course. If she had planned to kill Sansa he would have found her mutilated corpse among her sewing things, the way a cat presents gifts to its keeper. He ran his fingertips along the sharp edge of the folded paper. “She will have taken the Lady Brienne, too.” He looked to Jaime, watching carefully for his reaction. He needed the Knight with a maiden to save. “You were not wrong when you convinced her that Lord Tarth would do anything for his daughter.”

Bronn frowned and narrowed his eyes at the Kingslayer, finger wagging. “Oh. Oh… I see.”

“Are you going to help?” Jaime’s snap was telling. “Or will I have to kill you to make sure you don’t talk?”

Bronn snorted, but Petyr noticed his hand moved a fraction closer to the sword at his hip. “That right? Remember, I’ve seen you fight with one hand. I’d have the other one off before you could draw.”

“Lord Baelish here is a fine shot with that dagger." He was not. All three knew it. It was a farcical bluff.

The sellsword’s sigh was longsuffering. “Fine. But this’ll not be cheap.”

“How much?”

“More than I think even you’ve got, Lannister.”

“I tell you what, if we get out of this war intact, _you_ can have Casterly Rock; I’ll have no use for it.”

Bronn smirked. “You reckon sister’ll be alright with that then? Always fancied me a place by the sea.”

~~~

He cleaned up, washing the blood and ash from his hair and scrubbing his skin until the water in the basin was black and viscous. The whole time he was aware of Jaime Lannister perched on the bed; his unseeing stare, the slackened slump of his spine, cradling a golden hand in his lap.

Needing to escape the absence of the man, Petyr found himself a spot in main room of the tavern. The new jerkin was scratchy, but served to help him blend into the crowd; he was no longer a nobleman and his mockingbird pin sat in his coinless pocket, nestled within Sansa’s note.

The crowd had grown; a droning murmur, bodies pressed close, but not for warmth in the stifling room. A singer strummed a dirging song, low and apt for the mood. Those who had gold were still filtering in, faces masks of shock like the Kingslayer’s. The tavern owner would soon have to turn people away. No room. No space to breathe. Full of hollow men.

_“The North has a long memory, my child,_

_The trees, the trees, have eyes.”_

_The crone, she spat blood red and smiled._

_“The dead, the dead, shall rise”_

The cider warmed him through. The tankard nestled in his palms, he inhaled the spices, and could not help but think of smells he would rather rub his nose in. Fragrant lemon soap. Soft, flowing hair. The tang of her sweat, the taste of her womanhood.

_“When the days have fled in endless dark_

_When cold winds rise beyond the wall_

_Heed the words of noble House Stark_

_Winter comes, and it comes for us all.”_

The verse ended to silence. The singer’s eyes darted around the room, searching for appeasement and getting nothing. Giving up a lost cause, he collected his empty cap and moved toward the table where Petyr sat, alert and interested.

They were likely of an age but the singer carried himself with an exuberance that had long left his own bones. The confident set of his shoulders belied the ugliness of his hooked nose and narrow eyes. He would have sold well, Petyr thought.

There was a flash of a smile - tried, tested and winning - which he returned with a small quirk of amusement, and the man bounced onto the bench opposite.  

“A powerful message,” he said.

The singer preened, and dipped his head. “Well, I’m working on another – much cheerier, but I thought the occasion called for something apt.” He took a great swing of proffered ale and wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve. “That Dragon Queen! Setting fire to Cersei the Mad! I've not had better material since the Red Wedding.”

Petyr was surprised when he didn’t even flinch. There used to be a twinge, some tugging low in his gut at the mention of the way they cut her throat and  manhandled her body and threw the wretched thing in the river to wash away.

He quashed it. Played the fool. “The Dragon Queen?”

“Yeah, if you’d bloody believe it. Apparently everyone saw ‘em flying over King’s Landing.  Wish I’d managed to get there - what a tale.”

“You haven’t come from the Capital?”

“Nah. _Was_ heading there though. The Mother must be looking out for me.”

Petyr raised a brow, exaggerating his interest. Chatty and well-travelled, this man was a rich vein to mine.

The singer rolled his eyes. “These bloody wars. No one laughs any more. Can’t write a jovial ditty when everyone is mourning. I came South to try and spread a little levity, a little happiness. Gods know the Northerners need it more than anyone, but I’m not wasting my talents in trying to crack a smile out of ice.”

He waved a hand for the serving girl to bring a plate. “How far North have you been?” 

“Well, was up at The Twins for a bit – then followed the Lannister host back South. Left shortly before that Old Walder Frey-“ he drew a finger sharp across his throat, letting his tongue flop out comically “-got done in. What a tale! His sons! Cooked into a pie! You can’t write this stuff.” He took a large swallow of his cider, face turning pinker in the faint candle light. Then the singer’s voice lowered to a conspiring whisper that barely served to cover his glee. “But, I heard, men are going North and not coming back. Some are just blaming the winter – getting stuck in snows, ice and the like, saying the roads aren’t passable. But...some think there’s something more sinister at work…” He licked his lips and leaned in closer. “Why aren’t there any ravens? Hmm?”

The girl set a laden plate of meat and gravy down, and the singer thanked her with a winning smile before tucking in with relish.

“No ravens?” Petyr prompted.

“No, not a one,” he said, grinning through a mouthful of beef. “It’s like those stories you used to here as a child from your older brothers. The ones that w-"  

“You: fuck off.”

Bronn had reappeared at his side. The singer took a look at the man's glower and did as asked, scarpering into the sullen crowd. The sellsword sat with an ungainly thump, and began tucking heartily into the half-chewed hunk of gristly meat.

Petyr watched the man over his cup, until the meat was nearly bone, before he spoke. “Where can I get a raven?”

Bronn glanced up. “What do I look like, a fuckin’ Maester?”

“I need to send a message.”

His eyes narrowed. “To who? The Mad Queen to warn her we’re coming?” He jutted a greasy thumb in the direction of the back room, where Jaime was keeping his recognisable hair and hand out of sight. “Look, just because _he's_ brought you in, doesn’t mean I trust you. And don’t go making the mistake of thinking I’m watching your back, neither. I’d sooner stick a knife in it. Save myself a whole heap of trouble further down the line. I know exactly what sort you are.”

“And exactly what ‘ _sort’,_ am I?”

“The same kind as me.” He knocked the ale back, and then wiped his mouth on the back of hi sleeve. “I’m watching you, is all I’m saying.”

Petyr smirked. It pulled at the tender skin on his cheek. “You were Tyrion Lannister’s man once. What changed?”

“I’m any man’s, they pay me enough.” It wasn’t quite the truth, but he let it lie. “But, what I wanna know is, why are _you_ bothering? What’s that girl to you apart from a name and a fat load of gold? Now, I’m not a businessman, but it seems a big fucking risk.”

“I think you underestimate how much she is worth.”

Bronn was looking at him speculatively. “Is that right?”

“Certain interests,loyalties that need to be engendered are more favourable than ‘a fat load of gold’” He changed tack, meeting the sellsword's eyes proper.  “You are loyal to the Lannisters.”

The wry twist of Bronn's mouth and the quirk of his brow acknowledged he’d given the game away. “Only the Lannisters that’ve been good to me,” he said. “But don’t you go throwing around dirty words like ‘loyal’. I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

~~~

The horses were bought, the bags filled with hardtack and ready to leave on the dawn. He could not even think on sleep. And now, he was out from under the watchful gaze of a Mad Queen and her marionettes, away from the twitter of her little birds. He would be a fool to waste this opportunity.

He beckoned the singer back over, with a promise of meat and ale in exchange for his tales on travels through the Seven Kingdoms.

“I wonder if you would do a man a favour, for a good price.”

~~~

“West? Are you sure?”

“’Course I’m sure!”

Jaime squinted at the horizon, to where the sky was still grey as the sun rose behind him. The Gold Road stretched out before them, rising over the sloping mounds of the Riverlands. The other fork pointed south-west to Highgarden. Frost dusted the landscape turning the grass to delicate spindles that crunched underfoot. The frozen ground thudded hollow underneath the horses' tread.

“She’s going home…” he murmured, then, to them, “Casterly Rock.”

There was an odd, tight quiver in the man’s voice that Petyr did not like, but he nodded his assent. “It _would_ be wiser to seek refuge there if Highgarden is under siege.”

Jaime’s brow furrowed. “Under siege? By who?”

“The Dorne-Tyrell alliance - apparently Euron was flanked by their forces sailing up the Mander in the West and the army from the Princes Pass in the East. It is to be a great, ribald song: _The Coming of the Spear and the Flower._ ”

Bronn smirked. “Someone was in a talkative mood last night.”

“It would be foolish to pass up an opportunity to gather information."

Bronn shrugged. “Well then why not go to Highgarden and join the seige, throw ourselves on their mercy? They’re working with the Dragon Queen, right? May as well jump ship to the winning side now. Fuck getting burned alive by that mad bitch….” He looked to Jaime. “Sorry.”

Jaime frowned, but his reaction was dull. “So, we know nothing.”

“We know that your brother is still alive, somewhere,” Petyr pointed out.

And some spark lit underneath the Kingslayer, like a furnace coming to heat. “How could you possibly know that?”

“Daenerys was willing to negotiate favourable terms for Sansa’s release. It was important.”

“Maybe she’s into redheads.”

Jaime shot Bronn a quelling look. “Do you think Tyrion insisted?”

Petyr nodded as if he were certain. There was something to be said about having a reputation for omnipotence, when in fact one only had myths, rumours and half-truths. The logic was sound - the Dragon Queen willing to bend herself for a girl she had never met, meant an influence behind the white-haired crown. The smart men knew that Sansa Stark was an asset for any ruler who wished to unite the North with all kingdoms gone to war. 

Thinking on the Imp gave him hope, a twitching in his useless fingers, the creaking of the rusty wheels in his mind. If Tyrion Lannister were indeed still alive, he could see a way this would play out that would mean not losing his head to some Queen or another.

They followed the road West.

~~~

He woke sometime in the middle of the night to a soft, snuffling sound that wove its way among the trees.

The fire burned low, and his companions were lost to slumber. Bronn’s snores had died enough to ease the fears of whatever curious creatures shuffled at the edges of their camp. Perhaps wolves stalked just beyond the light.

He wondered how he would appear in those yellow eyes. Was he prey? Just meat wrapped in cloth and snagging bits of metal that would clang and clash on the teeth? Here he was, a mere man, powerless against beasts and monsters and men. Flesh that burned, bones that broke, weak and small and insignificant.

He pulled his dagger from its place at his hip and felt the weight of the steel, cold in his palms. The firelight play on the ripples and rare folds that signalled its worth. For all the lives he had taken, all the souls lost to his moves in the game, he had never once plunged this steel into another’s heart. Never felt the life bleed out of a man, or made a tear by his own hand.

The men that slept on beside him, they had been within touching distance of this thing named death. Both soldiers, both killers.

There were of course, those deaths he had orchestrated. And those, _them,_ that were simple consequence to his manoeuvres, well, that was a number that could go on and on, a winding line that laid the length of the King’s Road, into the distance; fathers, brother, sons. Wars, battles, famines. Stacked and stacked like coins, how high would their corpses rise?

A cost he had never counted, a total never tallied. 

Even now, here among the darkness and the firelight, he could not admit to feeling culpable. But it was the first time he confessed staring into an absence, broad and black, a chasm of his own making, hollowed once for every soul, and it went deep, deep and down. 

If he were bound up in principles of honour, would it smart more, or less? Would he be the slumbering soldier, the snoring sellsword?

No, there was only one death he could claim and that too came with the stigma of cowardice, of ignoble intent. And he remembered the wind buffeting against his skin - passionless, soothing - as he watched his Lady fall to her death on the ends of his fingers. She broke apart on the rocks. He had looked. He had seen. Stared at the bloody ruin, the way that viscera spilled like a broken piece of fruit. He had felt nothing. Should it gnaw? 

He scoffed, and Bronn started with a snore.

The wolves growled, padding along the edges of his sins in the night. He could feel the predator’s eyes, warm on his nape. They could take him now, and he would offer them nothing but another meal.

~~~

The path wound between the foothills, like taught silk between the clefts and rises of a whore’s behind. The Westerland mountains stood sentry in the distance, the guarders of the Lannister lands. The ground was hard and dusted with frost, the morning air bit at his cheeks, not yet warmed by the sluggish sunrise.

“Fuck me, is that Clegane?”

The three men laid on the ridge overlooking the Gold Road, heads low.

Jaime grimaced. “What’s left of him.”

What’s left of him was right; the man had somehow lost his left arm from the elbow down. He lumbered behind the Queen’s carriage, plodding on his great weight with the unbandaged stump swinging freely. From this distance, he could make out something like blood oozing from the wound.

“It should make him easier to take down,” Bronn noted.

Jaime raised a wry brow at his friend, opened his palm. “After you.”

“Right, so…” the sellsword said, wind whipping through his hair as he eyed the train, “how're we gonna do this?”

There _had_ been a plan, flimsy and insubstantial: ambush the train and infiltrate the castle with the Queen held as prisoner. It seemed ridiculous in the face of the armoured front that wound out before them. Unexpectedly, she had managed to retain a hefty load of her entourage. This was a problem.

“There’s at least a dozen mounted men, maybe double that on foot…”

“Forty-three.”

“What?”

“There’s forty-three,” Petyr said again, and flicked his head to the lumbering, stumbling, not-quite-man Gregor Clegane, “including him.”

He noted Bronn and Jaime exchange a look, a habit of theirs he had particularly come to detest. The blooded soldiers versus the soft, citied, coin-counter. It was a sort of mocking that rubbed far too close to the heavy-handed jostling he used to receive from the boys at Riverrun every time he was dragged to the training yard against his will. And even when he would stumble, bruised and limping to Lord Tully, it would be dismissed in the name of good humoured japes.

The two men rolled away from the ridge with some grace despite their bulky mail and Petyr attempted to follow in an awkward parody of their movements. Once safely away from the sightline of the Queen’s train, they stood with their hobbled horses.

“You any good with that?” Bronn nodded at the sword that hung from his belt. He’d kept it on him since Jaime had forced it into his numb hands in King’s Landing, for no other reason than he thought it might be worth something. His look of bewilderment must have been his answer. “No? Fucking great.”

Jaime shot Bronn a quelling glance. “Even three _good_ fighters against forty-three men would be suicide. We need another plan.”

A murmur of excitement rose in his belly. In the cold, beneath the unflattering, itchy cloth and harsh wind, he was reminded of a warm summer's day in the Hand of the King's solar. “How far to Deeps Den?”

“Half a day’s ride," Jaime answered.

“You ride ahead, quickly. Say the Queen’s train is in danger from the Tyrell force, and bring back a contingent of men. Make a lot of noise on your approach," he said, and both men stared. “Tonight, when they make camp. We go in.”

“You…and me?” Bronn asked, as if he'd been slapped.

“We will need to time it right. We need to get close to Cersei before anyone realises what is happening.”

“We," Bronn said, indignant. "We? And how do you expect _us_ to do that? I’m not scared of being outnumbered - fuck, I've faced some shit odds -  but there’s not a chance in seven hells that I’m gonna be able to cut my way through all of that, and watch _your_ back.”

Jaime looked amused. “He’s right – you’re not a soldier.”

“No. I am not.”

“Then how in the fuck d’you expect the two of us to break that camp? I’ll bet you’ve never swung a sword in your life. There’s forty-odd men-“

“Forty-three.”

“-down there, and all of them – even the pimply-arsed squires - have seen more combat than you."

“We have an advantage that they do not.”

Bronn’s eyebrow arched. “Oh, yeah? And what’s that?”

Littlefinger’s smile stole across his face.

~~~

The sun dipped below the westerly peaks and he followed Bronn down the steep goat’s path, clutching his borrowed sword as though its weight were worth an army of mercenaries at his back. Determined to keep up with the more experienced soldier, he ignored the strain in his neglected muscles, the way his knees creaked and his back groaned. His heart banged and pounded against his ribs like a prisoner of some injustice. He was sure it was loud. 

They skimmed the edges of the camp crouched low, using the shadows thrown by fire light as camouflage, and waited. Everything seemed both slow and quick.

The first sentry was easy. He stumbled out into the darkness, silhouetted against the orange glow of the campfire, fumbling with the ties on his breeches to release his cock. Bronn moved before he noticed. Petyr heard the splash of piss on frozen ground, an acrid waft followed, then the unmistakable _schnick_ of a sharp blade through skin, and the wet, gurgle of a man drowning in his own blood. The dull, metallic thump of a dead soldier hitting mud. Then silence.

Together, still not saying a word, they dragged the dead man behind a clutch of winter-bare hedges.

Bronn shucked him into the armour, wiping away the blood stains with Petyr’s discarded cloak. A spare, odd thought struck him as he laid the itching wool over the naked corpse; gladness, that it was not one of his rare silk-lined pieces serving as a stranger's shroud, sopping up all that blood. But then, he mused, all his finer clothes were now just ash, indistinguishable from the remains of the poor, the remains of the rest.

He straightened, his back and shoulders already beginning to protest at the weight of the metal, and turned to his companion, face unknown in the darkness. Without warning, the dead soldier’s helm was shoved onto his head, muffling the night’s sounds. It stank of rank breath and sweat.

Bronn snapped the visor over his face and hissed close to his face. “Keep that down, you’re to easy to recognise - should have shaved that bloody beard off.”

He wanted to complain at his discomfort, kick and scream against the ignominy of man like him, rattling around in this suffocating metal coffin. A lost, sad, part of the boy he once was did not enjoy the reminder that he was not at home as this knight in blooded armour.

But he said nothing, only nodded once, and strode off towards the light.

He picked his way between the tents heading as far to the centre of the encampment as he dared – most of the soldiers were either now far into their cups or asleep in their cots, only a few diligent Nightsmen manning sentry posts. Even he could recognise the shambles of a hasty guard, thrown together as the Queen fled the city. This rabble of Ironborn, Lannister men and opportunists were the last of her contingencies, running to her Father’s castle with the green blaze of her own folly throwing long, disfigured shadows out on the road ahead. He wondered if the last shreds of her sanity had been left, burned too.

A laugh, or a cry, went up somewhere behind him and he started. Nerve failing, he ducked inside the nearest tent and as the flap fell shut behind him, it fell into pitch black. As the seconds passed, as he waited for his eyes to adjust, his breathing to slow, he could hear the soft, piggy snores of another soldier's slumber.

Two men walked past the tent, with loose guffaws and belches. He stayed still.

Petyr waited a moment longer, until he was sure of being alone, but even as he began to see the shadows and the lumpy form of the soldier, the thin slats of the helm obscured his vision. He lifted the visor, eyes scanning the tent, keeping his rattling body still and spotted a snuffed lamp, pregnant with oil.

With one last look about at the sleeping man, he grabbed the lamp, lifted the handle and slopped the liquid out over the linen wall of the tent. He moved with silent care to the other side, trailing a line of clear, volatile oil as he went, then drained the chamber out over a pile of furs. 

He pulled the taper and flint from his pocket, trying not to fumble. The sharp strike of the stone was harsh in the silence of the barrack. The flint quivered in his shaking hands.

The soldier stirred, rolling in his bunk.

Again, he tried to light the taper. Again, the spark would not catch.

 “Fuck off would ya…tryin’ to sleep...”

Petyr started, dropping the flint. “I lost something. I just need the light…”

The man grunted, uncaring for a moment, then sniffed, catching the acrid waft of split lanolin. His eyes moved to the dark, spreading stain on the tent wall, then to the open, empty lamp, to the discarded flint and finally to Petyr’s exposed face. “Hey, you’re not-”

The soldier lunged for his sword but Petyr had his at his hip and his draw was quicker. The blade slipped into the man’s stomach with ease. It was the warmth that surprised him the most, as the blood rushed over his hands, like soothing bath water, but thick and red and wrong.

The man gasped, like a fish, or an unconvincing whore, mouth working open and closed until the gasps turned to gurgles of crimson, spilling down his chin. He died small, with his eyes wide.

Petyr exhaled. Grasped the hilt.

“What the fuck-?”

Another of the Queen’s soldiers loomed in the doorway, hand still holding back the flap. Twice his size in height and girth, the man rushed him, longsword drawn. Petyr tried to pull his own free from the dead man on the end but it would not come from the meat, his strength sapped by the weight of the unfamiliar armour. “Wait!”

The soldier did not heed him, and moved to swing the full heft of his sword down.

And it was if the full force of winter blew through his veins, closing and hardening him up from the outside, a brittle shell that could not be torn in two, but only shattered into a thousand icy fragments that would melt away into the dirt. And it was as if he was fifteen namedays and Brandon Stark had no mercy for quivering, little boys who could hold a book but not a shield.

Then, very oddly, the soldier stopped, stiffened, and collapsed at his feet.

Another silhouette of a man, as smug as any shadow could be, stood in the light.

“You’re a fucking liability, you know that?” said Bronn, and pulled his dagger from where it stood erect in the soldier’s neck and wiped the blade off on his jerkin. He nodded toward the other dead man on the floor of the tent. “First time?”

Petyr frowned. “Yes.” _No._ Yes _._

“Don’t worry; it gets more fun.”

His stolen sword still protruded from the dead man like a planted banner without a sigil. His eyes were open but he could not tell what colour they were in the spare light. “Did you find her?”

“Aye. I found her.”

When he looked up, Bronn was watching him. 

The sellsword opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and then moved to retrieve the dropped flint. He lit the discarded taper, the flash of making light blinding for a moment, then flicked it onto the drenched pile of furs. Petyr watched as the pelts caught fast, the sizzling of the hairs into stubs into nothing, the flames bloomed up the wall of the tent. His heartbeat stuttered, a sweat broke on his brow. But it was not green.

Bronn gripped his arm and he was wrenched outside, stumbling as he tried to correct his balance under the weight of the armour. He twisted from the grip, tripping on his own feet in his haste to _see._ Already, a spark had jumped to the next canvas, catching quick. Hot.

He clenched his fists, still sticky with another man’s blood.

Another rough tug on his arm and Bronn ordered, “Follow me.”

He followed and they ran through the camp jumping guy-lines, disguised by the chaos, as men ran towards the spreading fires. Up ahead there was steel on steel, the clashing and grunting of heavy weapons and blunt men.

“Is that him?” Even in the madness, the scramble, he dared not say Jaime Lannister’s name aloud.

Bronn paused for a second, pricked his ears like a guard dog, then shook his head. “No horns.” Then, “She went this way. We should help.”

He followed the sellsword towards the fighting, feeling the sweat run like tributaries down his brow, his neck, his back. The shouting grew louder. Grasping for the hilt of his sword, he found only air, and realised that the borrowed thing still stood like a claim in his dead man. The Valyrian steel dagger rested on the other side, sheathed in fine leather.

They rounded a corner and the Queen’s tent rose, larger and grander and Lannister red, the ground outside churned into sticky mud by the skirmish.

And there, in the midst of the fallen and fierce, was Brienne, unarmoured and bare-foot with another soldier’s sword, cutting a swathe through the Queensguard. A woman in battle, the watery glint in her eyes now he saw was her anger, not her fear. 

Bronn waved at the entrance to the marquee, behind at least half a dozen armed men. “In there,” he shouted, before throwing himself with glee into the fray.

The quick air from his lungs misted around his head, the scrape of sword on sword grazed his bones, but there was only feet between him and the tent that held Sansa. Only feet. 

He chucked his helm, and ran.

The mud clung like desperate hands, like poor beggar-men picking clean a carcass. But his path was clear, the soldiers converging on the blonde berserker woman wearing only cloth and glory. One stumbled back, repelled from the fight, clutching his hanging guts, and falling to his knees as if in prayer.

Petyr wove around the dying sod, lurching forward, reaching his goal. He went to fling aside the tent flap, only to be yanked away and flat onto his back.

Winded. Hurt. Nothing to-

He struggled for breath, fought to expand his chest in the weight of his armour. The air refused his lungs.

He gasped again. 

Then he saw Brienne, towering over him. Her fist clenched around her stolen sword, dripping with fresh blood, her breaths came in sharp pants through flared nostrils. That anger – her hatred – burned in her too-pale eyes, wide and crazed in the light that came from the flames of Cersei’s camp.

“Brienne, stop!”

Sansa stumbled from the tent, hair loose and red and beautiful about her shoulders. Breath rushed back into him; a man come alive.

It was different, but the same, as he lay helpless and frail and useless, as she threw himself across his chest. This time the sword was not held aloft. This time the woman at his side was his wife. This time his chest did not bleed but when she put her hand right where his heart would be beating it felt as though that was where he could die and start anew as every part of him rushed out.

“Petyr,” she whispered, as her breath misted in the night air. Her hands were on him, fingers caressing his face, grasping in his hair. He could only stare at her shadowed face, the shine of tears as they fell down her cheeks.

He struggled to sit, to be closer. It still hurt. “Sansa…”

Brienne stared down at them, her face frozen somewhere between confusion and disgust.

“You’re alive,” she said, choked. Her hands cupped his face, gripping tight. “You’re alive…you came.”

A horn sounded in the distance.

And it was won.

~~~

“We cannot just stroll through the gates of Casterly Rock with Cersei in chains!”

“Why not? You’re their Lord aren’t you?”

“She will have placed allies there. Those that fear her wrath more than they respect my title.”

Clegane was bound by links and links made to hold horses and ships, wrapped tight like iron bandages and still the monster strained, groaning and grunting despite the tears splitting his blue-white flesh at the seams.

His maker did not seem troubled, though he was bound and grazed, Qyburn's face was still that same benign mask, unnerving in its indolence, and the only words he had uttered since their taking of the camp, their slaughter of the guard: “I serve the Queen.”

Petyr watched the him as the Lannister and the sellsword bickered. He glanced once at Sansa, standing with the same wariness as he at the edges of the fuss. Her brow quirked.

Petyr crouched down and brought his face close to the chainless Maester, enough for his breath to condense on his cheek.

He paused, of course, before he spoke. “You are a clever man, a rational man. Practical. We are similar, in that way. And I certainly can find uses for a man like you." He smirked, one of his best. "A man excluded from the Citadel for, what was it, _black_ magic? A man that would be considered…unnatural.” Qyburn snorted with derision, but was watching with wary, watery eyes. “ _Cersei_ may have destroyed the faith militant, but there are many more like them. Just as holy. Just as fervent in their belief that those who play with the darker arts deserve a fate more…" And yes, yes, he missed this, "...prolonged...than death. It is _cathartic_ for them, to inflict pain on one so sinful. And to pay for the pleasure…well…”

It was subtle, but there; the slight up-down of an Adam’s apple, a small shiver. The bickering of the two men had stopped.

“You have nothing to bargain with _Maester_. Though I can certainly bargain with you. If you help us, you can continue your work in peace at Casterly Rock. I am sure you will achieve _great_ things.”

Qyburn’s eyes slid from Petyr, to Jaime, to Gregor Clegane still moaning like a thousand dying men. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he chewed the thought.

After a moment, he nodded to the wooden apothecary box in the corner of the tent. “In there, a tincture labelled with a thistle. It renders the patient conscious, but insensible.”

A golden hand shot out to stop him. “He could be lying.”

Petyr quirked the corner of his mouth. “Then we use it on him first.”

“And what about him?” Jaime glanced with unease as the Mountain strained - then moaned, unearthly - against his bonds.

“A sedative will have no effect.”

Bronn snorted. “Not talking about taking him with us - leave him here. Let the bastard starve.”

Qyburn's smirk stretched horrid and grim. “Again, that will do little.” As had the several swords to the gut, and several men crushed beneath his weight and one hand. His severed arm still oozed a black-blue sludge. “He will obey my commands. There is no need to have him restrained.”

“What and have you order him to smash all our skulls in while we sleep?" said Bronn, dirk drawn in polite company. "I say we cut his head off. That ought to at least slow him down.”

Brienne was staring at the Mountain, fear in her eyes. “What _is_ he?”

Qyburn smiled, a whisper of air escaping through his teeth. Clegane stilled. “What… _what_ ,” he hummed, as though chewing a child’s puzzle. “ _He_ is so much more than just flesh and blood. So much more. Destroy him if you wish, but he may be the key to defeating our greatest enemies.”

Bronn frowned. “The Tyrells?”

Sansa spoke, for the first time. “The Others.”

Qyburn’s grin only widened.

Petyr looked at Jaime Lannister, watching the wet echo of his sister's eyes darting with accusation from body to body, trying to maintain his grasp, his control. The man was now the leader of their rebellion, a true traitor against his own Queen, and every word they spoke seemed to sit unsettled on his shoulders. 

“Fine,” said Jaime, “we take them both.”

There was an assent of silence until Bronn spoke. “This is a stupid fucking plan.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *begs, pleads and grovels* I am still here. Still writing. Still grateful and unworthy. 
> 
> What do we get next chapter? A proper reunion, that’s what. And it will be sweet and fluffy and lovely and exactly what everyone wants. I’m not even lying. Can’t you tell by my face?


	22. Words on the Wind

Up on the eddy of ice-cool air, his feathers shifted. The land rushed past his belly.

Below the same tight-packed crawl; a line of ants tedious and slow without wings, with bright scales, reds and golds like the leaves of autumn. The ants tempted his beak: polished silver heads. An urge to peck, to hear the clang-clang-clang. Like nuts, or eggs they should break apart, spill a meal out.

He rebalanced on the breeze as the weight of his treasure pulled down on his leg. It was a heavy gift and that meant a hearty, tasty meal.

At first, it was a mountain, but then hollows emerged out of the stone. Like winters and summers and winters again had cracked the rock apart.

Heavy metal rattled as it raised, men cried hoarse noises like “OO” and “WAA”, and harsher sounds like steel on rock, but most were lost in the whips and gusts of air.

Approaching the stone, he cronked, eager to sate his empty belly. Loud enough for his brothers on the walls to call back: _yes brother-here brother-let us fly too brother._

Home was a sky that stretched for days and night and days again. He could remember being on the cold ground, before he learned to fly. It was unpleasant to think there was once a time he might have not had wings.

Dull, dull, creatures, too heavy for the clouds. He could hear them, voices cawing together like a flock. He glided down on their song.

Stone met feet. He hopped once, then twice and found his balance.

He shook his leg, eager to give his gift.

A skinny man - hair feather-black but like some of his brothers, weighted by chains - perched with a sliver of bloody meat, corn and seeds. Stretched skin over bared yellow teeth meant he was pleased.

The skinny man took his gift, tugging it gently from where it wrapped his leg. With relish, he tucked in to his meal.

It had been a long flight.

~~~

The chamber door closed, and Sansa rested against the wood as if to block the castle’s sounds with her back.

It pervaded every crevice of the keep like holy water trickling through cracks in the stone. The drone of psalm, the ecstasy of the Seven ever-present in the air. The cavernous Sept that lay deep below were like the lungs of the gods, bellowing their bidding from the Westerland mountaintop and into the skies, letting the winds carry their will. The hymns had carried the train up the course to the castle, darkness humming like siren song, growing thick enough to pull their entourage to a waiting yard, whose walls did nothing to shelter against the gales.

But now, after shedding the horses, the men, the armour, the crowd, they were alone. Cloistered after weeks and weeks. The door was closed. And there was silence.

The distance between them was too great.

Petyr dared not move first. He tried to flex his fingers, but his hands stuck by his sides, ineffectual.

Sansa stared him out, her face half in shadow and her expression unreadable. The late sun peaked through the narrow window and threw long shadows across the room. Her lips pressed thin, making her look like Cat. He felt like a young, shy boy standing nervous and unwelcome in the greeting hall of another Lord’s castle, centuries ago. A boy disappointingly small in her sharp, blue gaze, with nothing to his name but the clothes on his back.

“You’re an idiot.”

It was not what he had been expecting.  

“How long did it take? For you to find my messages?”

He frowned.  “I…“

“Exactly.”

He wasn’t sure whether to be scolded or amused.

“I- We were being watched.”

She scoffed, but it was not mean. “Please…”

“Sansa…”

“Lord Baelish,” she countered, challenging him with the quirk of her brow. “Littlefinger; the great manipulator, the string-puller. The cunning brothel keeper. The man who can conjure gold with just his wit, and bend kings and their kingdoms to his will.” Her lips twitched, supressing a smile. “The man who made himself a name, a ship…an army, from nothing.”

She took a step towards him. Then another.  “The _man_ I married.”

She pressed a small hand, still gloved, to his chest, still clothed, and yet the heat of her _burned_. She frowned at the empty space where his mockingbird pin would sit. “Tell me, is that man lost?”

His breath rose and fell beneath her fingers. He was sure that if he tore open his doublet he would find his scar healed, new skin clean and pink where her hand rested.

“He is right here.”

Her gaze clouded, and darted to his mouth. His eyes fell shut and he inhaled the damp, sweat-tang smell of her. She was close. How had he forgot her warmth? “And will he stop being so foolish and trust his wife?”

He nodded. The apology bubbled on his lips, a limp wisp of regret. But instead the air moved aside as she brought her lips to his. He did not move, but his throat clenched to stop the crack that threatened to break. Like absolution.

She kissed him once, soft, as her fingers grazed the rough stubble of his face. She too was worn about the edges, dirty from days of travel. But no less beautiful. No less his.

She kissed him again, cleansing his sins, purifying his doubt. He murmured her name out over the chapped skin of his lips.

She kissed him once more, pressing her whole self into him, closing the last of the distance.

And he enfolded her. Safe and warm and though she did not smell of lemon soap, but instead of horses and smoke and damp wool, he breathed deep gulps of her scent, happy to drown. Their foreheads rested, pillared against the other, each inhaling the precious ether between them.

After a moment, she pulled back a fraction, and appraised him. “You need a bath.”

He did as his Lady bid.

~~~

They lazed in the heat of the tub like summer dogs, his wife resting between his legs, against his chest, her head thrown back in to the crook of his neck. The oils rose on plumes, filling the room with the warm heady, lavender and rose and other scents like ghosts of a season and city long passed.

The chanting had wound its way back into the rooms, seeping songs more like dirges, meaningless notes to gods that would not, could not, heed them. But in this womb-like stupor he had no mind to dwell on silly, pointless things like futility.

He shifted, enjoying the swash of water as it lapped against the metal.

Sansa moaned, unintelligible in her bliss.

“Hmm?”

She said nothing in reply, just stirred as if reluctant to move and grasped his hand where it rested on the side, pulling it to the swell of her stomach where it rose from the water like a pink, pale island.

His thoughts were as pale and fleeting as the steam, so he simply stroked the taught skin, watching the rivulets make their way back to their maker.

That was when he felt it; a thump-kick pressure beneath the muscle. Sansa smiled into his neck and hummed again without words.  He pressed down, thinking he perhaps had imagined the sensation, but was met again with a bump of greeting against his palm.

Something new settled in his veins. Like hope.

And then all at once, unfathomable sweeping awe, deep and black and dire. Terror-like waves washing over; roaring foam thrown against tiny spindles of rocks and taking parts of land away piece by piece. And he stood with his toes on the edge of the last bit of earth.

Sensing his tension, Sansa shifted. She craned her neck and brought her soft lips to a spot underneath his chin, grazing the skin with kisses and licks.

It was enough to bring him back from that cliff's edge. He nuzzled her face, nudging until his lips found hers.

It started delicate and tentative, like the time in White Harbour when he knew he had won her as his wife. When he had felt like a Lord with a birth-right, like a man admired by his bannermen come to swear their fealty on their knees. As a man that did not fear the permanence of his own legacy. It was hewn from stone like the very walls of this castle.

Petyr slipped his other hand across her water-slick skin and down to her centre. Sansa moaned as he pushed one finger across her lips, across her nub. It was a tactile sensation much-missed. Another, he dipped inside, letting it rest lightly in her warmth. Her hips bucked forward, and a wanton gasp escaped her. “More…now. More,” she begged, eager and rocking against his palm.

He cupped her breast, relishing how weighty and full and it had become since she had swollen with his child. His cock filled quick at the thought.

He mumbled words like “love” and “sweetling” into her shoulder, continuing his ministrations on her quim. Sansa said little, just squirmed on his hand, eager and warm and wet.

His cock twitched, trapped uncomfortablly in the space between his stomach and her lower back, straining for attention. He worked faster, letting her please herself on his fingers and the thumb that rubbed her nub. The bath water sloshed in waves over the sides, swirling around them in an echo of her frenzy. With a sharp cry, she shook her release around his fingers.

Her breath settled into pants, her body boneless against him. 

He gave her a minute, then nudged the small of her back with his cock.

Her smile was lax, and she wriggled, exacerbating the problem. “Well you’re going to have to help me up.”

With a keen eagerness, so much so he banged a shin sharp on the edge of the tub, he manhandled his wife to the bed. Both of them, still damp and cooling fast in the air fumbled like newlyweds, kissing and playing.

Then Sansa fell back, the fan of her wet hair like blood and red across the furs. Laid out, full and round like the Mother. _With his child_. She was not just his Lady but his Queen.

He bowed to her will first. Coaxed his offering from her again with his tongue and the tips of his fingers until she declared him fit to be her believer. 

And he, rising among those subjects, a man in his kingdom where his soldiers marched proud beneath a mockingbird banner. Where his son would be borne and lead, be followed and rule. He would build it for them, rise into the echelons that no one ever deigned to think the name Baelish would pass.

Sansa cried and moaned beneath him, his Goddess.

He felt every moment of her bliss as she quivered around him. He was a King.

From the dire cacophony, the concordant invocations, the prayer reached its summit.

~~~

She slept, curled on her side, like a child with her fist in the sheets and the furs pulled up over her head with only tendrils of fiery hair escaping its warm confines.

Petyr dressed in the darkness, wrapping his skin once again in fine cloth and silk yet underneath the heavy cloak on his shoulders.

He fixed it with the mockingbird pin at his throat.

As the grey dawn crept in, the light of the rising sun impeded by the peaks to the East, he closed the chamber door behind him.

~~~

The tapestry that assaulted the wall was a misshapen badger as though it had been stitched by a maiden who had only been told tales of the creature by a blind man. It seemed an odd choice of sigil, and Petyr wondered on this man - the ancient Ser Lydden - who had placed his family’s legacies on such a woeful scavenger, no better than an overgrown rat too cowardly to hunt during the day.

It did seem appropriate, a cave sitting just above the snow line, hemmed by jagged peaks, scraping the sky with its cracks and rivets. Deep’s Den was a desolate place. There was nothing soft, nothing green. Just grey and white and whistling wind. And a perfect place to sett. It was not the squat, solidarity of Winterfell. This keep was entirely among the mountains like a craggy giant, shot full of holes, laying his last stand down across the road to Lannisport. The wind, like water, could find its way among the stones.

Everything echoed; no sound seemed to end. Even the fires could not heat the vast spaces of the rooms. And the fervent chanting at every endless hour itched against his skin.

Petyr wrung his brain for the history, but could squeeze little. Just the taint of fanaticism; heady worshippers, like penned and bleating sheep, down in the bowls of the Sept.

Here in their guest-tomb they waited now for the zealots to come and treat with them, perhaps infidels, and he could find nothing of value to sharpen his edge. Every book, every scroll in this holding was religious drivel: the divines, the seven, the gods. He could do better with a child’s scrawl of the Crone.

Jaime Lannister brooded by the slit window, his good hand clutching the gold one tight behind his back.

Bronn lounged against the desk, picking his fingernails with a stiletto.

“It’s no wonder my father never summered here,” the Kingslayer muttered.

Petyr looked up from the sparse ledger. “Yes, it lacks a charm…”

“It’s a shit-hole.”

“Bronn-”

Jaime was cut off by the door opening.

Lord Lewys Lydden was a small man – shorter than Petyr by at least a head – with a narrow, rounded posture that seemed in permanent apology. He lacked hair, he lacked charm and certainly lacked any kind of backbone. House Lydden was not a name dripping with wealth and glory; more the type to trail in the wake of the Lannisters, picking clean the carcass that the lions left behind. Lord Lewys looked like the type of man who would cry with gratitude for his bony scraps.

Behind him was the castle's Maester, tall and thin and dark with skin so pale that it must have only grown in the dark. He seemed reluctant to cross the threshold, but followed his Lord. His chains did not clank with his motion.

The door slammed to by the draft, shutting the party in. The chanting rose again through the flagstone, filling the room like a foul odour. The Maester lingered on the edges, despite the empty space. His eyes were black, glittering behind a beak-like nose as he skulked.

“How fares the Queen?” the Lord asked, eyes huge with concern. His hands were clasped – likely sweating – tight in front of his belly.

“Better,” Jaime said, a sad half-smile playing about the edges of his mouth. “I fear she is still not well enough to receive company.”

The Maester cleared his throat.  “If you like, I can see her? Offer my expertise?”

“No, that will not be necessary.” Jaime nodded his thanks in a fine blend of humility and gratitude. “Qyburn is diligent with her care.”

The quirk of the Maester’s dark brow attested to what he thought of that sentiment.

Lord Lewys perked. “By the Seven, good. Good! I am glad to hear so. The Queen is a hardy woman and will be well, gods be good. I pray to the Mother every day for her health. She should need sons soon.”

 “Yes, I thank you. And I thank you again for your hospitality.”

“It is nothing Lord Lannister,” the Lord bowed, and then bowed again for no apparent reason. “Nothing at all. Please, I implore you, take what you need. Your home is mine.”

There was a disturbing flinch behind the Maester’s eyes, like a flickering flame in a sealed-off room. Petyr shot a look to Bronn, still perched on the table and wholly absorbed in some stubborn dirt underneath his thumbnail.

He plastered on his most genial smile. “I thank you too, Lord Lewys. My wife is most pleased with our accommodations. And, as you know, a happy wife…”

The small Lord grinned, drawing back his teeth like a trained hound, then snuffed out a laugh, once again clutching his hands before him. It was an odd and awkward movement.

The Maester cleared his throat. “You must tell us again the situation at the camp – attacked by Tyrell forces you said? It is concerning if they have raiding parties this far North.”

Jaime sighed, pain in his eyes. “Yes…I regret, not my finest moment.” It was faultless.

The dark man, with his silent chains in the shadows, opened his mouth to speak again but a bell tolled low and harsh like a rolling wave.

At once Lord Lewys came to life, his whole body now hurried and sharp. “It is time for prayer – mother will be waiting.” It scurried out the door.

The Maester swept his black gaze over the three of them, like a slaver weighing their toiling worth, before he turned the edges of his robes swirling on the draft. Even as he descended the stairs, his metal made no sound.

Bronn shifted off the desk, posture relaxing. “Cheery lot, aren’t they?”

Jaime considered a moment, eyes still on the door. “What do you know of them?” he asked.

“Very little, I’m afraid.” It was the truth, much to Petyr's chagrin. He moved to the window, the slit through stone that looked down sheer side of the mountain. “House Lydden is a seat that toes the line. As far as I have ever been aware, one that is staunchly loyal to their liege Lord. Devout in their service to the Seven.” He grimaced. “Perhaps more than most. There has never been anything else to bring them to account.”

“I thought you were the bloke that had something on everyone?” Bronn asked.

“Only if they matter.”

“Well they seem barmy enough to matter to me – already had a maid come in last night and try and ‘wash the sin from me’,” Bronn grumbled, still playing with his dirk. “Wouldn’t mind if she were being coy…”

Jaime sighed. “Your lack of debauched distraction aside, we are at an advantage in holding _here_. Regrouping our resources. It will give me a chance to convince Cersei that the kingdom needs _peace_.”

It was sudden, black and viscous, the rage that bubbled up from his stomach. The thought that the woman currently insensible and formally his executioner could be bargained with. He swallowed and steadied his mind in the sluicing wind, even though he could well scream into it. “She will never see that.”

“At least let me try-“

“We are _useless_ here!”

He had not meant to raise his voice.

Bronn’s dirk stilled. Jaime’s jaw clenched beneath wary blue eyes, but his hand had not moved to his hilt. Instead, his left hand settled low at his side, and his soldier’s gaze ran over him in appraisal.

Petyr took a breath, letting the mountain air cool his fire. “I mean,” he said, finding his footing, “there is little that can be done to further the cause in this place. It is too isolated.”

There was a silence full of the three men standing still enough to turn to stone.

Bronn shrugged. “He’s got a point: these religious types – stuck in the past. And so smug. Have you seen his mother?”

Jaime only had to lift his head, throw that glance.

“Fine, let the big boys talk,” the sellsword grumbled as he left. “Anyone needs me, I’ll be trying not to die of boredom.”

Petyr turned back to the narrow window. It took perhaps hours, or days, before Jaime spoke, and he loathed how much weakness broke the Kingslayer’s voice. “I _can’t_ take her home – not like this. She’s…”

Gone. Mad. Dead. And a whole pile of sin besides. One only had to look as far as the ashes of an entire city to see how far her ambition, her greed, her need to prove herself something better, had taken her. And yet her Knight, this brother, still begged for her virtue like she were a maid only guilty of stealing loaves.

“I cannot secure any treaty from this back water.”

“I am not asking you to secure _anything_. It can wait – it can all wait!" Again, the frailty failed to move him. "The Dragon Queen has retreated for now, Euron has lost Highgarden. We have time.”

It was sincere, such words and so passionate. He had thought this man a warrior, a knight when needed, a knave when not.

Petyr turned and faced the man.  “We must move to Casterly Rock.”

Jaime’s jaw clenched. Strong and anvil-like. “We hold _here_.” It was an order. “Here, there are no Ironborn spies. There is no war. No allies or enemies. We bide our time. Keep safe until we have a better lay of the land.”

Petyr held, though he had only his pitiful dagger. “Is that what your father would have done? Hidden in the mountains?”

The Kingslayer’s eyes flashed, and this time his hand did move towards his hilt.

And there it was, swaying in the draft - the spectre of the words unsaid between them; there was no agreement, just an assumption that they were moving towards the same goal. For a time.

Until they were not.

Petyr nodded. “We stay.”

~~~

For some small blessed hours, the chanting ceased, the time between luncheon and dinner apparently not as holy as the other parts of the day.

He picked his way through the passages of the keep, gnarled rock wet to the touch, lit only with sconces. Cracked openings broke away, fracturing into darkness along mineral veins, worn stairs that descended into the bowels of the mountain.

Instead, Petyr chose every step that led up.

In the absence of the rituals, he could make out the sound of steel on steel, a much more homely clang and it flowed like river water into his course. He followed, eager.

He came to overlook a chamber, open with sunlight breaking in beams like pointed knives into the wide stone space. Below, the sheltered sparring yard was littered thick with rushes and play.

Petyr smiled small as he recognised the armours that scuffled, as the small crowd of squires and servants cheered their tourney.

He was a gleeful boy, leaning his weight over the stone ledge. Watching the blows and parries, grunts and heavy exhalations; a cacophony of knightly vigour, ringing steel of defended honour. It would be Brienne of Tarth and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater and their great dual at Deep’s Den.

Without thought, and with a tingle in his belly, he calculated the odds; Brienne was the taller, more powerful and trained in the proper ways of combat. Ser Bronn had no qualms, no chivalrous need to fight clean. He also shirked the heavy metal of a knight to move quick around his foe.

Like the many ways to win a war, a fight of different styles had challenge; both with merits and both with flaws. Forgetting money, he enjoyed each swing and parry, the way the closest shaves made his heart beat fast in his chest. 

A warm and soft thing leant into his side and he started. When he saw his wife, he lost the disappointment of being torn from the fight. But a juvenile thrill, still rampant, made him grab her about the waist and pull her close. Finding her hand, he brought her palm to his lips, and kissed the lines.

Sansa seemed amused, bundled up in her new Westerland furs. Thankfully, no badger in sight.

“What did Maester Jarvis have to say?”

She hummed, leaning into his playfulness. “That I am to eat more, he is small. And that I should not travel – it would be best to stay here until my confinement.”

He frowned, letting Sansa see his consternation. “How long?”

“Two moons.”

For a moment he started to count backwards like a jealous fool but was brought to bear by Sansa’s hands on his face.

“He is _your_ son. Not his.”

In the glaring face of all logic it was ridiculous to assume that _Ramsay Bolton_ would be the father of the child in her belly. But, there was a primal monster that reared, like that dragon in the night, at the solid and fiery feeling as the last wall of doubt crumbled beneath this affirmation.

His son.

So _no_ , it would not do. He could not atrophy here in Deep’s Den, useless and far from his world. Where talented warriors like the Lady Brienne and "just" Bronn, fought like squires with blunted blades. 

He gripped her hands and burrowed their joined fingers beneath her furs.

“I tried to ask him more but he would not answer my questions. He seemed more interested in how we came to be here – as if we are an inconvenience.” She pulled back and turned her head to watch the sparring below. “I feel powerless. Korrah-“

“Korrah?”

“The handmaiden in King’s Landing.”

“Oh.”

“She would go on and on about the pain, the misery of it all – her mother died giving birth to her younger brother,” she said and looked back at him. There was a tear that threatened to fall in her eye. He knew she would not let it. “Sometimes I thought that Cersei put her up to it, other times I think she was just a morose little thing. She would say, that the gods take women this way. That the Stranger was once an orphan who lost his own mother, and still searches for another to fill her place, taking every mother he thinks might fill her place.”

The swords and grunts and pathetic cheers played below them, but he did not care to look. He wanted to bury his nose in her sweet-smelling hair, force his breath past the ache in his chest. He held even tighter to her hands. “More reason to get to Lannisport; plenty of midwives and Maesters.”

Her head snapped up, eyes still wet, but her face dry. “I am not afraid.”

“No?”

“If there is a man who can cheat the gods, it is my husband.”

A cry of joy went up from the courtyard; Brienne had been disarmed and lay scowling on her back, her sword flung feet away. One of the kitchen maids clapped, making her tits bounce heartily as Bronn preened.

But Petyr saw the glean in Brienne’s eye.

Sansa whispered close to his ear, her eyes fixed too on the scene below. “There will be enemies at Casterly Rock – the Queen’s spies. We cannot fool that many people all the time.”

A rough grunt of force was the only warning Bronn got before he was tackled mid-waist to the ground, a shoulder in his gut forcing the air clean from his lungs. For a moment, he flopped on the ground like a landed fish.

“No, not fool them. Not if we want to accomplish anything of worth.”

Sansa frowned, flexing her hands under his cloak, at his stomach.

He elaborated, “What can stay a man’s sword, his loyalty?”

She caught. “Greed. Fear.”

He pulled her round, to face him. One hand came up to stroke through the hair that he wanted to bottle and never sell.

“And then what? After that? Where do we go?”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Home.” Her lashes fell to her cheek, as though she was ashamed.

He tugged harder, squeezed, on her fingers, wrapping them together bodily. “Then you shall go home.”

There was jeering and catcalling from the yard. Petyr glanced down to see the dark-haired Maester slither in, barking a halt to the japes and revelry. With reluctance, the yard cleared.

Then the Maester’s head lifted and met Petyr’s gaze with shrewd, black eyes. It was hard, like the stones.

When Petyr looked back at Sansa he found her searching his face. For a second she was a wolf, like a hunter scenting a path for where her prey had gone to ground. But it vanished, almost as quick as the shafts of sunlight moved below the gaps in the dome, leaving only gloom.

Like a rumble, the chanting started again.

He kissed her light on the forehead, but her hold on his fingers had loosened.

~~~

Petyr took a moment before he answered the knock at his borrowed door.

He let the nib scratch on the parchment; like his own soothing song. A vessel for his words that had once soared through the sky. Now, it had a new purpose; it gave peace to his mind as it rested on his fingers, even when he was still fumbling for a plan.

The chronic draft stirred at his ankles.

“Come.”

Qyburn stepped over the threshold, insinuating the space. The man pried with his eyes, as if with his sight alone he could caress the things that were not his. It was all fuel for his curiosity.

“Cersei?” Petyr asked without ceasing his script.

“I can keep her insensible, I could even encourage the process. If that is what you wish.”

Petyr could have laughed. Once he had been in absolute control of the Lannisters and their wealth; he had tied their purse strings in knots, left a trail of bloody droplets to eminent corpses, and sowed ripened seeds in the minds of other great Houses. And what did he have now? A deranged woman who had proclaimed herself Queen with neither the brains nor the capacity to still be standing at the end of this war. And a castle wall high enough to throw her off.

He stilled his quill and stared down the chainless Maester. “How do I know you are not plotting to restore her?”

“What would it serve?” Qyburn asked, attempting an apologetic grimace.

“What do you need?”

_What do you want?_

A tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Coin…bodies. Men.”

It didn’t even turn his stomach. Not this abstract negotiation of lives that would be taken and turned into abominations. No, _only in the face of it, when it is against you with stinking breath_ , he thought. But, to keep this man, knowledgeable and abhorrent, would prove useful in this small space.

“Hard to get here without arousing suspicion,” Petyr noted.

The last thing he needed was a witch-hunt, with nowhere to run apart from down the sheer cliff-face.

Qyburn shed his skin of deference and sat down across from him. “In exchange for my cooperation, you promised I could continue my work at Casterly Rock.” He leaned forward to inspect the inkwell, eyes unfocused.  “ _This_ is not Casterly Rock.”

Petyr moved the inkwell out of the man’s reach. “We have orders from Lord Jaime – the Queen is not to be moved. We stay here until he says.”

Qyburn looked at him then, fully in the eye, considering. The effect, though he would never show it, was disconcerting. “I knew him at the Citadel.”

Petyr hated to admit he was lost in the conversation, so instead he heaved with weary boredom. “You did?”

“Young, but sharp. And altogether too firm a believer in the higher powers. It is why his chains are so few,” he said, then smiled down at his clothed chest, “though plenty more than mine.”

The Maester. Of course. “If he was so devout then why did the Citadel let him apprentice as a Maester?”

“It is more common than one might think, for those who wear the chains to also wear the chains of the faith.”

“And, _y_ _ou_ don’t believe in the gods?”

“I do not.”

“And in the face of everything you have seen, you do not believe in magic: the power of fire and blood?”

Qyburn smiled without teeth. “Knowledge is its own magic. And everything is knowable.”

It felt obscene: two mocking men, mocking the gods and perhaps, themselves.

“Knowledge is power,” he conceded, hating the words as they left his lips. Those words were his own to be kept safe, not shared in victory or hubris. He could still feel his heart pound against a cold-tipped blade on such a warm day, the panic that had gripped like the metal hands of her guards. Her smile, victorious and _wanton_. Like before she had thrown him into the pit. And licked her lips.

Qyburn’s watched him with pity, not cruelty. “ _Where_ do you think that power comes from? The air? The gods? The blood that runs through our veins? No, no… none of us are special, not a one. Some of us are just...better at realising our potential. Take the man the who can see through the eyes of his pet; he is still just a man. He will bleed out if I cut his throat.” He leant back in the chair, thoughts turning inwards. “I would love to see the inner workings of that mind. Unique. This knowledge – or, power, whatever you like to call it - is there to be harnessed. It has nothing to do with the gods.

“Dragons – now there is a curiosity -back now after hundreds of years and why? I want the answers to these questions, the same as you seek threads and whispers of intelligence on this lord or that lady. Dragons may seem like great, magical beasts – unstoppable like forces of nature – but as I think I proved back in King’s Landing, as mortal as you or I.”

Petyr made a show of great breath, of deep thought. Of absorbing new philosophy with reluctant acceptance. He reached for his untouched goblet and blinked under the watery, ready gaze of the older man. “It is interesting, what some men will attribute to the gods,” he mused, cradling his wine. “Even acts done by men for no other reason than to get ahead in this world. I, myself, have never been a religious sort.”

“Not a failing.”

“No, an asset, if anything.”

Qyburn’s lips twitched into a smile. “If we do not have the gods on our side, if I cannot pray for our release from this place, then what is there to do?”

It was like a comfort, in the presence of a man like this. He did not miss the smell of talc or the soft, slip of silk slippers, or the patter of little birds at his doors. But here was nostalgia, like warm bread in his cold child’s hands, and it heated his fingers through.

“ _Perhaps_ some bad omens will befall us.”

Qyburn nodded once, a bow of his grey head, then rose graceful as a maiden, hands clasped like a Septon.

There was no need to watch his retreat; a man like any other. There were always just different parts to be moved.

Petyr returned to his letter and wrote his plans in fresh ink.

~~~

“Well it’s not good news.”  Bronn had a limp in his gait and Petyr tried not to smirk.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, they’re not happy about Clegane – like any of us are happy about that giant fucker – they think he’s unholy. And Qyburn. And you. And probably me, but she let me stick it in her so she can’t’ve been that bloody unhappy about it.”

“Unholy?”

“You do realise that you are pretty fucking infamous for being a traitorous c-“

“Yes. Fine. But what about Lannisport? Is it still overrun with Ironborn?”

Bronn frowned. “Overrun with Ironborn? Dunno where you heard that? They’ve all fled back to the Iron Islands.”

“Not the whole West coast then? Up to Riverrun?”

“No, they’re licking their salty wounds on Pyke. Well, and the daughter leading the other half are ported with the Dragon Queen on Dragonstone. Fucking each other from what I heard.”

“You’ve heard a lot, it seems.”

Bronn narrowed his eyes. “Me? Just a good listener.”

Petyr smirked.

“Ser Bronn.” Sansa had appeared at the door to the solar, resplendent in her demeanor; the casual curiosity of a high-born Lady.

Bronn swivelled, somehow making his startle into a dashing bow. “M’Lady,” he nodded. “M’Lord.” With a swift dart of his eyes towards Petyr, he left with haste. A whistle that could have been the last strains of 'Rains of Castamere' echoed up the stairwell.

Sansa crossed to her sewing things, only some of which were unpacked. She began to ravel the threads, placing each one neatly in their places. “You trust him?”

He watched as the bits and bobs became neat little rows in her pack. “No,” he said. “But he has his uses.”

~~~

_Oh shush, he cried, I have better things to worry about. Why can I not just have a clean doublet, he thought? It is as though every time I put a new one on, it gets drenched again. And blood is so hard to get out._

There was a word on his lips as he woke but also the pounding in his chest. He grasped for Sansa, and she was there barely stirring from sleep herself. She mumbled, nonsense but panicked like him.

“Stay. Stay.”

He rushed into his nearest clothes, grabbed his dagger belt, and down to where the din came.

The hall, the same sparring space from the day before, was full of people. Jaime Lannister was ready with a sword in his bad hand and Bronn not far behind, half dressed in only his breeches.

“GET HER OUT!” A crone, bent in two and seething, hissing and bent with rage scrambled across the floor as if trying to dig through solid rock. “GET HER OUT!”

Petyr pulled his dagger and let the belt he had not had time to fasten fall.

“My Lord Lannister! Mother, please! My Lord!” Lord Lewys said over and over again, a litany against his mother’s screams.

There was a pool on the floor of the hall, growing and red and making paths of its own. There were women, head to toe in black and covered, kneeling, crying and praying all at once and so close to that it would soon soak their skirts. Blood dripped on their hoods, down their faces and blended with their tears.

Petyr realised he should have looked up sooner.

The Maester hung like a banner from the roof, long black hair waving as gusts blew through the cracks of stone. Alabaster skin, carved like marble, with markings unlike any language Petyr had ever seen. Each one now blurred as the lines bled.

“She is possessed…” the old woman hissed. Bent in half and wild with unholy rage. Her yellowed claws fingered them all. “Her sins, I told you! GET HER OUT! I told you it would curse this house! She is no Queen of mine! The Seven cursed her. When she stole the crown!”

Lord Lewys cowered by his mother, the fear plain on his face. “Surely, the Queen would be better…in her own home.” It was a pathetic begging sort of man, that tried to appease them all.

The screams of the crone were ragged and grating. The sobs of the holy women carried like a harmony on the howl of the wind.

The Kingslayer looked about his battlefield, face unmoving, but his voice was cordial. “Have we outstayed our welcome, my lord?”

“I-“ The weak lord faltered, trying to gather his mother, pawing at the solid floor. “Forgive me, that is not what I meant at all, only that-  I only wish to see the Queen well. Casterly Rock – her home, her father’s home – might see her back to her senses. I have,” he wavered, faltered and went to scoop the crone, “I have my own to attend to here.”

Jaime’s eyes hardened, darting to the crone, to the flailing corpse of the Maester, then to Petyr. His jaw worked before he spoke. “Of course, Lord Lewys. We shall leave on the morrow.”

~~~

The raven plucked his feathers, nipping at an itch.

The line moved longer this time - a trail of legs he knew would be bald and pink beneath their stolen skins, slow and cumbersome under their hardness, like insects crawling beneath their shells.

He had been caged, fed heartily but unable to see the sky for nights and days and night, only able to hear the wind in the dark. "It is winter," it said with cold breath.

South: he knew he had to go. Though it was far from his nest, he would at least be warm.

He shook out his feathers, tested the weight of his new gift. And took off into the grey.

 


	23. What We Don't Know

_Ser Prestor,_

_The Queen and her train are set out for Casterly Rock. Please ensure the castle is prepared for our arrival._

_\- Lord Jaime Lannister (dictated)_

_~~~_

_WW,_

_Send word to the rose garden. We shall be upon the Rock before the day is out._

_\- Mockingbird_

_~~~_

Gaudy, gauche and gold. The walls dripped with ostentation.

It was a setting the same as any grand hall of the land; the upper dais for the Lord and Lady and their honoured guests, the tables on the floor stretching the length of the room, dining in order of favour. Petty men fought to be in spitting distance of their hosts and those benches would normally heave under the throng of small Lords and hangers-on. Now they were laden with fine ornaments, ale and meat, but sparse on mouths to feed.

“This way, m’lord.” He followed the Lannister serving boy, feeling at odds with the splendour in his ill-fitting clothes, chaffing under a week of accumulated dirt.

They walked past the small guard that had accompanied their party – ostensibly the Queen’s Train - to Casterly Rock. These men were the tatters of an army, the smart ones who prioritised survival over fealty. They shoved food into their faces in weary silence. It had been hard going on the road from Deeps Den as the mornings grew colder and the ice grew thicker with each passing mile. The snows had frozen even the hardiest souls.

Winter was here, and it was loud.

Bronn appeared in good spirits where he sat closer to the upper echelons than likely he had ever been and revelling in Lannister hospitality. Already a pretty girl with dirty-blonde hair – a bastard Lion judging by the point of her face and bright, green eyes – leant her bosom into his eyeline. The sellsword responded with a cocky smile, then his eyes flicked over Petyr head to foot as he was escorted past. It was a shrewd look and not new. The same appraisal of his person that Bronn had given him that night at the inn outside of King’s Landing. 

Down the table, Brienne stared at her plate with large watery eyes, her skin the grey-white of ash not the ruddy pink he was used to. The woman had been noticeably slower, more sullen, since their dramatic overthrowing of the Queen’s train and Petyr had not missed the way she favoured her right side. Perhaps her recovery was not as miraculous as Qyburn had led him to believe, and the stubborn wench was refusing to seek help. He had not yet worked out whether this was in his favour.

The high table itself was a sad tableau: a portrait of this noble House without embellishment, propaganda or adornment, as though the artist had merely held up a mirror and declared it done. The shimmering gold cloth could not cover its shame. Some other lords, other ladies, all done in finery and fetched with haste from the surrounding lands were seated as a welcome to the queen. What a sorry sight their paltry train must have been as it descended into Lannisport. They were doing well to hide their disappointment.

The Kingslayer sat with his golden hand resting on the table. Next to him, his last true Knight – the only one to have made it to the Lannister stronghold – the short, hard Ser Forley Prestor, with a coarse brown beard and a pate like a boiled egg. It was not clear why the man was here and not still with the remainder of the troops at Riverrun, but the man was a minor obstacle. The two were in deep discussion.

And there, at the head, propped up like a doll in her father's chair, was Cersei in her drugged stupor. Qyburn perched on her left, playing mother with a hovering spoonful of broth. It gave him great pleasure to see the Mad Queen becalmed, eyes flat and glassy like the sea after a storm. Soup dripped from a corner of her mouth onto her lap.

He climbed the steps and took his seat, only three places from the centre. An honourable position for a traitor, an enemy of the crown, and even more recently, a prisoner. It seemed that all sense of propriety had been tossed in favour of pragmatism. It was a shame that he could not revel in Cersei's anger, insensible as she was. It would be a fine thing to see.

A plate of roasted eel was set before him, steam still rising and his cup was filled with fine wine. He turned his ear to the conversation beside him.

“As far as I’m concerned," Ser Prestor was saying around a mouthful of meat, "if they’re raping and pillaging the North again, all the better for us. They were a drain and a pox on Lannisport and the alliance was shakey at best. Those cowards fled Kings Landing the moment they caught sniff of a dragon. How many Ironborn did we lose? And how many Lannister men?”

“Too many,” Jaime muttered into his cup. 

“We are scattered. We should concentrate on winning over the smaller lords, with men and grain for the winter. It should not be hard to convince them to side against a fire-mad Targaryen with a foreign army.”

“Perhaps,” replied Jaime. The man had been sullen and taciturn since their unceremonious ejection from Deep's Den. Petyr had played ignorant to the Kingslayer's ire, but he knew Jaime was more shrewd than most would think and likely realised the whole affair had been staged. So much for their tentative truce, Petyr thought, he would be better off free from any obligation, real or imagined. He was not a man of honour, or a man of his word. He had already betrayed the Lannister man three times over. A fool would continue to trust him now. And fools ended up dead. 

The empty chair beside him scraped back and he turned to see Sansa seating herself, still managing to seem graceful beneath the weight of their child. Often now, his hand did not need directing to the movements underneath her skin, where her stomach swelled and the little one would kick out. Her smile was warm.

“I thought you were resting," he said.

“I’m here to keep an eye on you,” she said sternly, but the glint in her eye gave her away.

“My Lady, I can assure you I am behaving myself.” He quirked an eyebrow at her and her smile broke out wide.

The lady to her right – Lady Jast, if his memory served - engaged Sansa in a witless conversation and Petyr turned back to his eel, only half-listening to the prattle. "...isn’t it just terrible – poor Cersei. But the grief must be awful. To lose one child, let alone three. Oh! I’m sorry Lady Baelish, I forget myself: you must be excited? A first child is a wonderful thing.”

Sansa’s replied politely, “Please, you have not offended. My husband and I are looking forward to meeting him.”

He could see Lady Jast’s ridiculous headdress bobbing out of the corner of his eye as she nodded with earnest. “Certainly, the gods are on your side. To escape that horrible attack on King’s Landing, when so many perished.”

“Yes, I thank them every day.”

Lady Jast barely took a breath. “Truly, they are smiling down on you. And that is only a good thing! If the gods are good to the Queen then they shall be good to me too! Thank the Mother she is here safe and sound…” Petyr slid his gaze to Sansa and quirked his brow. She kicked him in the shin. “…Father was terribly concerned. He was praying to the Seven day and night that she would make it home. I swear he never left the Sept. It would make me weep to see him so sad. Do you pray my Lady?”

Sansa did not miss a beat. “I do.”

“To the old gods or the new?”

It was an odd silence, just a tiny heartbeat of a moment, but he could feel Sansa tense. Lady Jast’s babbling continued, heedless. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I am not one to judge – we are all on the same side, after all. There is a godswood here too, with a Hearts Tree. No one uses it and it’s probably nothing like what you have back home. But I’d be happy to show you, my Lady.”

Sansa made a noise of acquiescence, but his attention had been taken by a slight figure scurrying from the back of the room.

A man, at first he thought young but no- just thin and wrinkled with malnourishment - moved like nervous bird, twitching and darting his eyes, a scroll of parchment clasped in his hand. It wasn’t until the man stepped on to the dais that Petyr saw the port-wine stain that blighted the left side of his face. The air in the room turned frigid and thick as though snow were about to fall from the ceiling.

For a moment, their gazes caught. Dark glistening eyes sat in the man’s head like imposters.

"Uthod, what news?" 

He whispered in Ser Prestor’s ear and the knight nodded, fork still speared in his fish.

“We have word?” Jaime asked.

“Indeed, from Riverrun: they are holding three dozen deserters from the North.”

“Deserters?”

“Hmmm…” Prestor thought a moment, stroking his thick beard before answering, “Unhorsed Vale Knights most likely. Never heard of a Northman giving up on his own.”

Petyr flicked his eyes down to his cup, seeming more interested in chewing, but kept the scrawny man - Uthod - in the periphery of his vision. Sansa too was eating with nonchalance, but every word would be reaching her ears.

“Seems like they’ve run mad – ranting about the dead coming back to life. The gods must be on our side. Let the Winter and the Ironborn finish them off.”

He watched the messenger retreat, staring into his back as though he could read his secrets. His thoughts buzzed, grasping at sense, and failing. The only question: if they had all sailed north to raid, why was the Ironborn warg at Casterly Rock?

~~~

_Lord Arryn_

_If the time comes when your valiant men are overcome, it would be prudent to order them behind the bloody gate. The Vale can be held, and with your strength of leadership it will be. Lord Royce commands the main force at Moat Cailin. Send your orders directly to him._

_A wise man knows when he must retreat, to fight another day. That day will come. When the smoke clears and the ashes have fallen, the Knights of the Vale and their Lord will be the last formidable force, when so many others have foolishly thrown themselves on the pyre._

_I trust you will make the best choice, My Lord._

_Yours, loyally,_

_\- Your Uncle Petyr_

~~~

The silk rested on him like new skin, shiny and pink after the burnt rot has sloughed away. It felt divine. Every time he rolled his shoulders or twisted at the waist he relished the caress of the fabric. 

Amongst all this opulence he finally felt  _settled_. Like the air filled his lungs proper instead of the heaving, small choking breaths he forced through his tightened throat.

The pile of dirtied common clothes sagged stained and unrepentant on the floor of the bed chamber.

And in the mirror there was beginning to be a man he recognised.

Along with his rich new clothes, the household had adorned their rooms fit for a high Lord or Lady. They were ostentatious even by Lannister standards as though trying to drown the occupant in the superiority of this House. A cornucopia of fruits and wines, surely shipped from the warmer climes in the south sat on the sideboard, ready to be consumed or to simply turn and be thrown away. The bed, four times the size it needed be, with carved lions that tearing into the lesser animals of the Seven Kingdoms. 

And the huge, gilded Cyvasse board, each ivory piece larger than his fist; beautiful and terrible figures of warfare set to battle as the centrepiece of this ridiculous chamber. Needless in every way other than as a demonstration of wealth. Though, he though, it _had_ been years since he'd played. 

A tap at the window made him start. He had been gazing at his freshened reflection like a vain fool and he turned to see a big, fat raven on the ledge, pecking at the glass with impatience. There was no missive on its leg, just a hard black gaze beneath thick feathers.

“Go away.”

It considered him, first with one eye, then the other and tapped again.

He frowned at it. “What do you want?”

He had run mad perhaps, engaging this rude bird in chatter. But there was something in those black eyes that made him pause. He thought of the cages in Qyburn’s dungeon, the tingle on the nape of his neck he had felt all the way from Winterfell. Was it possible that this raven was not lost on his way to the rookery? It seemed ridiculous. 

With a long-suffering sigh for the benefit of the empty room, he let it in, and the cheeky thing hopped with a flutter onto the table that heaved under the piles of fresh food.

"Ah, so just a hungry opportunist?"

The bird quorked, looking at him again with eyes that seemed too knowing, and hopped to peck at a cherry. 

Was this him: the warg? Maybe the other one, further north, keeping watch over his kin? Bran, that boy wrapped in furs with eyes like Ned Stark but which saw more than could ever be possible. He despised the way his skin raised in gooseflesh. Or, he thought, railing against his own hope, it was just a crow looking for food now the ground had frozen over.

The raven flapped and bounced over to the grand Cyvasse board, discarding his worked-over cherry stone. It hopped between the pieces, stopping to nip at its feathers where the Spearman and the Dragon pieces held the field.

"What do you want?" he asked again, this time with more patience. "What do you know?" 

The bird crowed once more, a sound he could interpret any number of ways, any amount of words sounded similar. But he could not shake the feeling that it had said "snow". 

The door to their outer rooms opened and shut. The raven, startled, took off out of the open window. He stared after it.

“That’s better,” Sansa said softly and he turned, regaining his composure. She appraised him from the entrance to the bedchamber with a small smile. “You look like you again.”

It was true: he had shaved and trimmed his beard, plucked the dirt out from beneath his nails. The rings slipped onto his fingers, he thought they would be heavy, clunky, but instead their weight was comforting.

“There’s just one thing missing...” Sansa stepped towards him, leaning close. He put his hand on her thickened waist, stroking her side. Her fingers came up to rest at the bare fabric over his throat. “Do you still have it?”

Her closeness dumbed him, so he nodded. Placing a hand in his pocket, he pulled out the pin and held it up to the light flat in his palm. For a moment they both just stared at it – the polished little mockingbird on his steady perch – then Sansa plucked it, and affixed it in its rightful home.

Her look of triumph was so thrilling, he had to lean in and taste it on her lips. He could feel the winter chill on her cheeks, the flakes of snow melted in her hair. The kiss was like a memory: the day the world had turned. The day he had seen more than just Cat’s daughter in her. The day he had done something so utterly rash, utterly foolish, to save a girl that made his heart beat warm and thick in the cold. 

After a moment, he pulled back. To his delight, there was the smallest pout on her swollen lips.

“Did you have an engaging trip to the Godswood with Lady Jast?”

She leaned against him and sighed. “Far from the peaceful prayer and contemplation that is appropriate. That woman could talk a stone wall to boredom. Gods, was I ever that naïve?”

His arms wrapped around her with little thought. “Naïve, perhaps. Brainless, no.” He pressed his lips against her dampened hair. “I saw potential in you the moment I saw you sitting prettily next to your sister on the stands at the Hand's tourney.”

She pulled back and looked at him squarely. “You saw my  _mother_  in me.”

It took him aback: did she need this from him, truly? Or was it more play? He brought a palm up to cup her face and spoke in earnest, “Perhaps. But your mother would never have become what you’ve become, my love. Never have endured what you have endured. Your mother was a good woman, I miss her terribly. But she could never have been as strong as you.”

She pulled from his gaze, from his arms, leaving him cold. Instead she moved over to the Cyvasse board putting it between them, and looked at the spot where the bird had left its crumbs and half pecked fruit.

“What are you up to?” There was no accusation in her tone, but he saw the retreat at talk of her mother.

He suddenly needed to hear her brilliance. What had he crafted, like a reforged blade, from the shards of his broken girl. To appease the part of him that still suffered guilt. He said quietly, “You tell me.”

Sansa began to fiddle with the pieces, so large in her hands that she would not be able to wrap her fingers round them. He was sure she did not know the rules, but had no doubt, were he to teach her, she would be a formidable player. 

“I can tell you only what I have observed...” Her fingers lingered on the King. His beard was full, his glare stately. But he was, as most players knew, a largely ineffectual piece.

He gestured: go on.

“You are relying too heavily on Qyburn.” The Trebuchet now, under her hands.

“You think that unwise?”

She shrugged. “He is driven by the pursuit of knowledge above all other things. He stays close to those in power as they enable him to do his work.  He will be satisfied for as long as you can keep up with his curiosity. If not… he will grow bored. Dangerous.” Her eyes flicked up and met his. “It is not like you to put so much stock in someone so unpredictable.”

Was that disapproval he saw? He waited. A good player always has patience.

She took a breath, and shifted the Heavy Horse, unadorned and carved in bone, pulling him along the table to the centre. “Ser Gregor, too, is a problem.”

“Indeed,” he drawled. “A large one.”

She shot him a look. “And your solution?”

“I have Qyburn – and therefore Clegane – occupied for the time being.”

“With Cersei?” She looked sceptical.

He nodded.

Sansa shook her head. “I don’t like it; it feels too...unwieldy. And I don’t see how it gets us closer to securing the North.”

“With the Seven Kingdoms, comes the North too, sweetling.”

“Were you telling the truth?”

“When?”

“When you spoke in the godswood, at Winterfell. About wanting the Iron Throne…” She paused, considered the little imperious faces of the pieces. “…and me at your side.”

“What makes you doubt it?”

“Someone once told me to always keep my true motives hidden.”

“Someone who was also confessing to the murder of a King at the time?” He waited for her reply, but she only looked at him – steady and hard, no longer a trace of the shaking, uncertain girl on that boat, all those years ago. “We are in a good position, exactly where we need to be for now. A position that can let us move anywhere. I am working on securing allies outside these walls – for now you need know nothing more until I am certain of the outcomes.”

“That sounds like you’re not really in control of anything.”

He stepped towards her, began to walk around the edge of the board to her side. “I have found if you attempt to control every little thing, rather than go with the course of human nature, you lose sight of the bigger picture. And of course, people hate to be meddled with. No, it is always better to anticipate.”

“And the others? The ones who have helped us? Ser Bronn. Jaime.” She lined up the other pieces along the edge with the Heavy Horse and the Trebuchet, then paused, her hand hovering over the Light Horse. Then resolutely, she said, “Brienne.”

They formed a wall at the edge of the board, facing them both with their pearlescent faces, their intricate carvings. He considered them and Sansa watched, her face neutral.

Could she accept it, if it meant winning? To lose her lady knight, her defender, her sworn sword. Her last defence against any of her enemies.   

Or was she testing  _him_?

With one hand he reached for her wrist, pulled her hand up and kissed her palm. With the other he picked up the Light Horse and moved it back to her proper place. She tried to hide it, but relief came for the smallest moment across her face.

He smiled into her soft skin, murmuring his words like a promise, "Only our enemies need worry, sweetling." 

Here, in the Lion’s Lair, he was finding some kind of himself again.

And there had been word from the Targaryen: her terms for their surrender.

_~~~_

_Your Grace,_

_Your terms are harsh, and I regret that I cannot agree to them._ _I have heard you are merciful, and I have heard you are kind. I also know that my little brother advises you – and I know he is a rational man above all other things._

 _Cersei is most unwell with grief._   _Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen. All children, taken from her before their time._ _From one grieving mother to another, I hope you can find it in your heart to understand that what happened at King's Landing was not a decision made in right mind._

 _I have advisors that would wish me to stand against you. I have an army still, that hold the Westerlands and the Riverlands. There is little left of the Crownlands to want, but the people that live there are loyal to the crown._   _The kingdoms are divided, at war and in pain. Let there be opportunity for negotiation and alliance, so that no more innocent people have to lose their lives._

_\- Lord Jaime Lannister (dictated)_

_~~~_

_My Lord,_

_Prepare for a siege – Riverrun must be held at any cost._

_\- Lord Jaime Lannister (dictated)_

_~~~_

He ran into Bronn almost bodily on his way up the staircase to the rookery.

"Evening, m'lord. Off to send a message are we?"

"Indeed. Yourself?"

“Just stretching my legs, taking a stroll.” The man paused, squinted at him. “Thought all the friends you had left were in this Castle.”

“I have vested interests in many places - mostly business.”

“Aye. I know.”

There was another heavy silence. 

“I thought a man like you with all your _vested_ _interests_ would have heard about the Ironborn ditching Lannisport well before a lowly sellsword like me. You seemed so up to date before we left the Crownlands. Doesn't make a lot of sense, you know?"

“I was mistaken.”

“Right.”

Another stretch of silence, and Petyr felt the prickle of nerves at the nape of his neck. He smiled and ducked his head in deference. "If you'll excuse me, Ser Bronn. Good Evening."

Bronn's lips twisted into a smirk. "'Night, m'lord. Sweet dreams," he called as he trotted off down the stairs. 

It took him a minute to consider his options - he could come back another time and send his missive then. Bronn was snooping around for a reason - perhaps lining up alliances of his own, spying for the Kingslayer, or indeed doing nothing more than 'taking a stroll' as he said. 

But the time was now, a window of opportunity not to be missed. 

He continued upwards. 

The thin, scraggly Uthod was busy with his birds as he opened the door. It was an eerie place. All were placid, quiet - none of the flapping, fluttering squawks that often greeted a visitor to a rookery. He noticed too that there were no cages, to contain the creatures. Instead they perched around the room freely, every black eye on him. In silence.

Petyr cleared his throat. “I have a message that needs to be sent. At once.”

Uthod turned around, the light from the sconces reflected on the mark that covered the side of his face, making it stand out pink and purple against the shadows. The man held out his hand, saying nothing. 

Petyr checked the seal, running his fingers along the hardened wax, pressed with his mockingbird in deep green. He handed it over, and waited.

The man blinked at him for a moment, then turned to his flock. He held out one arm and without any other signal, one of the ravens hopped from the side onto it. The bird made no sound, only held out a leg obediently for the message. 

"Do you not need to know where it's going?" Petyr asked as he watched the silent man tie the message on the silent bird.

Uthod turned. "Where's she goin'?" His voice was harsh, ill-used, like rust on a blade.

"The Lusty Lion. In Lannisport."

The other man nodded once. Then with no further instruction, chucked the raven out the open window into the night. 

“How clever are they, these birds? How much can they understand?"

Uthod frowned, like the answer was obvious. “Same as men, m’lord. Some are smart, some are dumb.”

Petyr considered him again - perhaps he was no older than twenty or so, just roughened with a tough life and lack of food. He could not escape those hard, black raven's eyes, sharp and knowing. Could he fly these creatures? Like Brandon Stark, could he see the happenings at a castle a thousand leagues away?

It occurred to him that if Uthod truly had these abilities, he could be very useful indeed. And Qyburn might get to see the innards of a Warg after all. 

 ~~~

_twatbeard is up to sumthing. leters gowing in and owt. still dont no who his mesenjer is. carnt I just kill him?_

~~~

_So, it seems our little mockingbird is still playing both sides. And playing my brother well._

_The deal will be struck with Olenna Tyrell – I assume he has a go-between that I have not been able to root out and the Queen of Thorns is as prickly as ever. I know you are better at hacking and slashing, but I need to know all you can gather – who he speaks to, where he goes._

_As always, I promise you endless riches. And no, before you ask, you cannot have a dragon._

_\- The Hand of the Queen_

_~~~_

He lay beside his sated, sleeping wife, already bereft of being inside her.

He drifted with the ebb and flow of sleep. He moved his arms about her, then, too warm, rolled away onto the cooler sheets. Tried to find rest that would not come. 

Here he was again, watching his words around her, checking for her hard blue glances. She busied herself, same as he, with her motherly things. Sometimes he would catch her singing Northern hymns to as she stitched to her son, some with words he did not know and meanings that were surely lost to time.

He wondered if it was like a play. Her mummer’s show of wifely peace and loyalty - she pricked her ears as she sewed. Listened for words, and said her own like a tightly-written script. 

Words like love. Honour. Nobility. Loyalty. Words as empty as the mines below this rock. He carried his dagger and his cunning and his regard for his wife and unborn child, there seemed to be little room left for the likes of love and honour.

His wits had been scattered by storms and mad queens and green fire, he reclaimed them like broken pieces of fine porcelain. He could already see the cracks closing as every day passed.

It was a swell of anticipation, a spike of excitement at the unfolding: alliances were founded and floundering and he was in the perfect position to barter, bluff or fold. There were so few players left, only the last rungs to climb. The seat of Highgarden was still within reach if he moved the right way, so too could he break apart the ranks of the North in a few, simple moves. 

Some men fucked, some rolled dice, some fought with bare fists until their faces were black and their knuckles bloody. His were the highest stakes of all.

He had assured her they were safe. He kept his back watched, but some of the tension had lessened with his new found strength. Strange that in the seat of the Lannisters he had found a haven. He dined with lions and stole meat from their jaws.

Rolling back to his wife like a wave, he pressed his full length against her bare back, craving her skin against his. 

The smell in her hair was new: lavender. He drifted off, trying to conjure the scent of lemon soap.

~~~

_My Lord,_

_The Rose blooms in the Lion’s den under the height of the moon_

_\- WW_

_~~~_

_Imp,_

_I will not be told how to negotiate like some empty-headed soldier. I assure you I am more than capable._

_I will hear him out – he may be a traitorous coward but he is no fool. Underestimate him at your own peril._

_\- Lady Tyrell_

_~~~_

He donned his cloak, letting the heavy black wool settle about his shoulders like a shadow. His leather boots, his gloves, like armour. He moved silently through their rooms.

He made his way down to the godswood. He heard the flap of wings in the darkness.

A look up at the tree, spindly and white. His raven was settled on the branches, staring with hard, black eyes. Silent, unforgivably so.

“Would you tell me if this was a fool’s errand?” he asked it. 

Nothing, not even a quork. Typical.

“I thought not.”

He made his way to the stables, paid off a man with another coin. As he waited for the carriage to be brought about, he watched his breath mist on the cold night air, billowing through the lightly falling snows.

It was only minutes before she found him. “I’m coming with you,” she said, dressed up warm in her travelling cloak, one hand on her stomach and the other holding a lamp.

“Sansa," he said with barely restrained patience. "It’s dangerous.”

“Safe enough for you.”  

“You might not like what you hear,” he warned.

She said nothing, and climbed into the carriage without a backward glance.

He threw a hefty bag of coin to the driver, then followed his wife inside. Still, Sansa stared straight ahead, lips pursed. There was silence, as the horse huffed, the reigns were whipped and the wooden wheels creaked on their axles as they began to turn. 

They were almost off the hill when she spoke again, “Whatever you’ve been plotting, I need to know that it is in our best interest.” 

“You don’t trust that you and our child are my only priority?”

She looked at him, the same way that she had at Deep’s Den. The way it hardened into a mask he could not interpret. 

He reached out to grasp her hand in his.  “We are in a better position now than we have been in months."

“It is as though you just cannot help yourself - the schemes, the secrets. We have no idea what is happening in the North. We have no  _real_  power – no titles, no lands, no money.”

“We have the means to all those ends, sweetling. I have climbed from nothing before, remember. This world is a terrible place, a merciless place, and sometimes all we can do is make it better for ourselves and those we love. Protect that which is precious to us above all else, at any cost. 

Foolish men think that gallantry and pride will win this world to their side. Those who do not bend will break. Those who see the ugliness and stand against it, are as ill-fated as a rowboat in a tempest. Do not doubt that I will do anything to get what I want. And what I want is you, our child and a future."

Her sigh was long suffering, but she squeezed his hand. “And how exactly will the Queen of Thorns help?” she asked.

He frowned. “How did you know?” 

She gave him a steady look. The one that told him he was being particularly dense and always came before he underestimated her. “The secret you share - it connects you, gives you both enough leverage on the other to feel strong in negotiation. You would not trust this to a messenger. Neither would she. She likes to do her business face to face, to root out weakness. And everyone else is on the other side of Westeros.”

He was proud. So proud of her. “My clever wife. Our child will have the wits that will make legends.”

A line settled between her brows and she he looked away. “I don’t want that for him," she said quietly, to their joined hands.

The carriage came to a halt before he had chance to question what she meant, the driver banging on the roof to signal their arrival. He did not like it, but there was little time. He wanted to turn around, go back to the point where they shared ambition, when her eyes had lit with passion. Instead, he said, “Stay here.” Sansa opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off. “Just for a moment, I need to pay my informant and I would rather he not see you are here.”

She huffed, but acquiesced, settling back into the seat.

Lannisport at night was subdued, the chill in the air less harrowing at sea level and soothed with the faint of waves lapping at the harbour. The Lusty Lion was the best brothel in the town - he had leant the money to the owner himself - and it would guarantee a clandestine meeting place, with all the lips that could speak paid handsomely to stay silent.

"Took you long enough." The singer stepped out from under the awning, feather blowing in the sea breeze. “My gold?”

Petyr chucked him a weighty purse. “How goes your epic?”

Whitesmile Wat preened. “The Ladies, they love it. And they shall love it even more when I return to shake my pouch at them.”

“I trust your journey from the East has been uneventful?”

“Very little to share, m’lord. Travelled mostly with refugees along the Rose Road, all fleeing King’s Landing with just the clothes on their backs. Tried to keep them merry with a song or three but they were a dour lot. So I went ahead to Highgarden to serenade the old bat. You were right – she enjoyed my little ditty about the Mad Queen." He grinned, full and toothy and beaming with pride. "C'mon. This way.”

As they entered the brothel, it was as though he had fallen back through the years, and here he stood once again in King’s Landing. The smell, the rich fabrics and the soft wafts of incense. The tinkle of playful laughter, the moans of chasing pleasure. “Is she here?”

“Yes, and in as foul a mood as ever,” Whitesmile said. “In the back. Ilda!” A girl appeared, clad in long, draping folds of muslin, sea-green and gold. Watt gave her a lusty look then sauntered off into the main room calling behind him, "See you soon, darling."

Ilda swayed her hips as she walked towards him, pressed herself close to whisper in his ear. "I hear you're a very powerful man." Her perfume was sweet and cloying, like honey.

When she pulled back, he saw Sansa standing in the entryway, eyebrow arched. “Shall we go?” 

“This way, m’lord," Ilda simpered. He followed, with Sansa two steps behind.

The Queen of Thorns did not rise to greet him as he entered the back room. Instead she sat wrapped tight in furs, lips pursed. Glaring. 

“Lord Baelish,” she greeted, “once again, you have outdone yourself on the locale.”

“Forgive me, for some reason I find these surroundings comforting.”

“I’m sure you would,” she drawled. Then, there was a fantastic pause: the sound of the stoic, steadfast Lady Olenna taken aback. “Lady Sansa…” It took only a moment for her to regain her composure, settling back into her prickling self. She smirked and cut her eyes to him. “Afraid to let her out of your sight now you’ve caught her?”

Sansa spoke first, and her tone was firm. “I wanted to be here.”

The old woman’s eyes slid accusingly from him to Sansa and back. “Well then, please, sit. A lady in your condition should not be left standing.”

He pulled out a chair for his wife and she sat. To his dismay there were no other seats in the room, but rather than fumble for another with indignity, he stood, as if it were his own establishment. The table was set with a vast array of indulgences – figs, lemon cakes, sweet treats and wine – and he could see Sansa eyed them just as warily as she should given the woman's history.

Olenna settled a selection on her plate, picking apart the cakes and the pastries in lieu of actually placing anything in her mouth. “Is that why you brought her? To convince me that you can be trusted?”

Sansa’s back straightened. “I brought myself.”

“Girl-“

“I am  _not_  a girl.”

She paused in her destruction of a rose tart, appraising Sansa. “No. You are not. So, why _are_ you here?”

“I wanted to…thank you. For what you did.”

The Queen of Thorns threw him a look that would have made a lesser man soak his breeches, but he matched her stare, raising his eyebrow as a challenge. Yes, he had told his wife that they were complicit in murdering Joffrey – what of it? Olenna pursed her lips, then smiled at Sansa. “You are a shrewd one – what on earth are you still doing with this fool?”

“He is my husband.”

“He’ll get you both killed.”

Sansa held the old woman's gaze. “Because of him I escaped King’s Landing – alive. Because of him I won back Winterfell from the Boltons. Because of him Ramsay and Joffrey are dead.”

“And because of him were you not both the prisoner of Cersei Lannister not two months ago?” The look on Olenna's face was pitying.

Sansa faltered, a line of uncertainty forming at her brow. 

“Yes,” he interjected, smirking like Littlefinger would, “and now Cersei is mine.”

“So your singing messenger has relayed. At length," said Olenna, her attention drawn away from his wife. Her stare was hard, cold once again. "But forgive me if I don’t quite understand how you have managed to subdue and take Casterly Rock, with her brother as a supposed ally. Now, you demand to be let in on our alliance with the Dornish, with Daenerys Targaryen and her armies. You play with fire, Lord Baelish, and I do not wish to be inside the keep when you burn it down.”

“Perhaps, if you told me what it is you want, I can be of more assistance.” He opened his palms, lowered his voice. He would be the calm in the face of her matriarchal rage.

“Want?” She huffed and when she spoke again there was a rasp to her voice. “My family is gone. Everyone I ever cared about in this wretched world _is gone._ She took them from me. I want Cersei to suffer.” 

“And what will I get in return for handing over such a valuable prize?”

“That depends…”

“On?”

“On whether you can hand over her brother too. The last thing I need is the Kingslayer raising what’s left of the Lannister bannermen for his beloved sister's honour and getting in the way of the reparation of the Reach.”

He could feel Sansa’s eyes on him.

“He will not come quietly,” he said.

“No, but by all accounts he is a half a swordsman. Surely even _you_ could best a one-handed man?”

“You didn’t answer my question. I will do nothing until I know what I get in return for a Kingslayer and a Queen?”

Olenna smirked. “Your life? I thought that would be worth enough to you. You’re a fool if you think I’m handing _you_ any power, Lord Baelish.”

“Tyrion Lannister promised me Highgarden,” he said, keeping his frustration pushed down but the words still rung like those of a petulant child in his ears. 

“You promised him that Queen Daenerys would be able to walk into King’s Landing and find the city hers. Now we are one dragon less. The Queen is not clear on whether that is due to your incompetence or your treachery.”

He paused, and clenched his jaw. The old woman could get under his skin if her let her, he needed to stay removed, sharpened like a dagger. But the disapproving gaze of his wife was burning like a brand of guilt into the side of his head. “Well then, we are at an impasse. And may I remind you: ‘our fates are intertwined’.”

“Reveal us to Cersei?" She sneered, as he threw her own words back at her. "Please. She’d kill you too.” She glared, nostrils flaring and he bit his tongue hard and tried to spin a way to turn this negotiation back in his favour. Vengeance was a powerful motivator, but it made people blind, rash and likely to err. Even a formidable woman such as Olenna could falter in the mires of her own anger, stick fast in irrationality. 

“Lady Olenna," Sansa said, and it was enough to bring Olenna back from the brink of her rage. "My brother – have you heard from the North?"

“No," she said, weary. "No one has heard from the North. Not for weeks. There were some riders South – Knights of the Vale mostly, but now they have retreated behind the Bloody Gate. That was the last word we had from the Queen’s Hand – licking her wounds on Dragonstone.”

There was silence and for a moment he could hear the noises of the working brothel filtering into the room, like an intrusive memory that refused to be buried.

“The North.” Sansa was quiet, but clear. “If Jon is dead, I want the North.”

Olenna looked at her, pale blue eyes steady in the candle-light. “I wish to speak to your wife alone.”

There was a tension now, as he met his wife’s eyes. Sansa nodded at him, and there he was, dismissed like a servant.

He turned and left. And when he tried to linger outside the room a billowing girl with painted red lips took him by the elbow and led him away. A whore, paid by coins that were not his: the thought was just as unsettling as the conversation at his back.

~~~

_Spider_

_The terms have been agreed – the Queen and the Kingslayer and surrender of Casterly Rock in exchange for the Lordship of Highgarden. Though if you let him live to sit on my son’s seat I will burn the thing down with myself in it._

_The Red Wolf believes she has the mockingbird in her teeth. I have warned her not to be foolish when it comes to him and his games. She has grown formidable, but she will be a mother soon and all the weaker for it. I fear she may care for the rotten snake. She is certainly_   _his_   _greatest weakness..._

~~~

It was a sombre morning that greeted Lannisport as their carriage trundled up the hillside to the Rock. He was weary, his eyes heavy, but his mind raced ahead like a spooked horse, panicked and stupid and heedless of danger. 

She had only greeted him and then sat back, eyes shut but not sleeping and he had tried to being his thoughts to reign. What poison had the Queen of Thorns dripped into her ear? Could she be turned against him in one conversation? Or were there seeds of doubt, eager to sprout and grow, like vines ready to strangle him. And one day he would wake, tangled and unable to breathe.

He could entertain the possibilities, and nearly every one made his stomach turn.

“You once told me something once," Sansa said into the quiet, "about what you wanted. I didn’t understand then. I am not sure I understand now.”

“I did." He had to be careful. 

“Is it still true?”

“I only want to keep you safe. Keep you both  _safe_.”

Her gloved hand moved reflexively to her belly. “Is that all you want?” She held his gaze, then it stuttered away. “'Everything': that was what you told me.” Her lips thinned. “How can one man have  _everything_ without sacrificing something?”

“I told you what I meant.”

“You told me what you wanted me to hear.” Her eyes were hard as she accused him. “You still keep things from me.”

He did. What was it? Habit? Caution?

No; necessity.

To keep things from her - his plots, his machinations - there were some things he contemplated that he knew even she would not palate, things too wrong, too hateful, too horrible. He shielded her from the darkest lines of thought, like a knight from terrible monsters. The filthiest creatures of his own mind would devour any trust she had, he was sure. But it was necessary - _necessary_ \- he feed them, as they were his greatest weapons. Like Dragons, wildfire or whitewalkers.

So what could he say to appease her that was not a lie?

He could think of nothing. Only rushing, gurning images of spiders and rose thorns and imps creeping into his wife's bed. 

Sansa turned her head, and fixed her gaze on the horizon. The sky was a dull grey, expecting only the weak winter sun. 

They were silent the rest of the journey.

When they arrived back at Casterly Rock, he alighted the carriage first, then turned to help Sansa down. She ignored his hand and stepped away.

He pressed his lips together, considering what he should say but was interrupted by a fuss at the inner gate. Brienne came running towards them, as if she had stood sentry all night, waiting for her charge to return. “My Lady,” she gasped. “From the North: the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. He brings news of your brother.”

Sansa went pale and darted towards the commotion, forcing her way through the gaggle of people. He fought to keep up with his determined wife. Pushing past the soldiers, the servants, he came to the front of the crowd. There sat a crumpled man, in black-grey rags, and Jon Snow’s great white wolf standing guard.  

When the Night's Watchman looked up at Sansa, his eyes were deep set with shadows. His hair hung limp around his thin face. His nose was black with frost bite, cheeks stung red and raw, his mouth twisted dourly. “I wish I brought good news, m’lady. But then why change the patterns of a lifetime?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had wanted to get this fic done before Season 7 started, but hey-ho.
> 
> I have had a lot of problems with this chapter – it has been extensively rewritten about four times. Scenes that just were not working, my writing sucking etc. However, nothing has changed from the original plan, no matter how much D&D will inevitably break my heart this Sunday.


	24. Brother

 “How can you fight Winter?

It’s like throwing a sword against the wind. Only a fool would even try.

So, I guess that makes me a fool and Jon Snow King of the Idiots.

The crippled lad – your brother – with the Reed girl: thin and shaking and blue to the roots of her hair. And him, pink as you like. You should have seen him m’lady, like he’d just come in from playing in summer fields.

It didn’t start right then, not right away, but you could feel the air turn colder. Prickles on your neck. Ice on the wind. He set the Brothers on edge, made them side-eye each other as they followed my orders. I ignored them. “Let him through,” I said.

So, like good soldiers, they let them through and then we let them leave to go South to Winterfell.

I should’ve known at the time, should’ve listened to the feeling in my gut: no one can survive that long alone beyond the wall, yet two bloody children turn up out of nowhere. One a cripple…

…fuck…

Sorry, m’lady.

I’ve been evading the Ironborn for weeks. All up the coast; they’re taking every scrap they can from the North now it’s defenseless. They're heading in the wrong fucking direction. Poor sods – I would’ve warned them if I’d not been so sure they’d kill me on sight. Wouldn’t be here, if not for Ghost. I reckon the others that were sent out without a direwolf haven’t fared nearly as well.

...

And it's all my fault: I ordered the gate up, let him cross.

Something they don’t tell you before you go North, before you see the Wall for the first time, is the way she _groans._ The Brothers used to joke, “Sounds like an old man taking a shit.” We’d laugh, as if the shifting of a thousand years of ice didn’t scare us, and then we wouldn’t think about how it loomed over our heads while we slept.

We ignored the sounds, her terrible sounds. Wailing like a mother without her child. As though she mourned all those that have guarded her, all those passed under her. All those men of the black gone out beyond her and lost forever.

Only, they don’t stay lost any more.

That night – the night after I let your little brother go south to Winterfell, m’lady – the Wall moaned long and loud. She began to weep great chunks of ice that came crashing down on both sides. An old woman’s tears for her dead children, those all born in winter, in the night. And that night it was a sound unlike any Brother had ever heard - or any man has ever made even when shitting out his bowls.

You know, I used to mock the Brothers that feared death. It always seemed inevitable to me: the sun comes up in the morning, rain gets you wet. We all die.

Just another one of those questions that needn’t be asked, because even if the gods deemed us important enough to give us the answer, it wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference us knowing anyway.

Now, the North is a place where only an idiot doesn’t fear the dead, because even if you stay still, wrap yourself in wool and stone and armour, death  _will_  come. It’ll fucking rip you to bits. 

But it was like we all forgot what happened at Hardhome, because some traitorous cunts (sorry, m’lady) stuck their knives in their Lord Commander. When Jon Snow was murdered, we were like children again – bickering amongst ourselves, mindless to the army of the dead that marched our way. We were just the same as those men who slayed Jon: too busy thinking selfishly to mind the future.

We should have learned. _I_ should have learned. I could've prepared the men better,

But the mind has a funny way of shutting out all the horrible, terrible things we see. Maybe so a man doesn’t spend the rest of his days afraid to shut his eyes. And for most of the time after the Wall fell, I think we did all live in that state, us who had seen the things we’d seen, well, we joked and laughed and jeered just as hard.

Because the silence is worst. The silence is what was to be afraid of. Those dead men don’t breathe or curse or cough. Or joke or laugh.

Imagine if they did – what would they joke about? Who had the most skin left?

Three days later the Wall came down.

It was more bodies in a place than makes sense to the eyes. Swarming over each other like ants that have been scattered when some awful little shit has gone and stomped on their hill.

We were overcome in minutes.

I saw brave men of the Watch lost beneath that heaving press of cold bodies, and you know – and its terrifying when you think about it for too long – that those faces, men you call Brother, now lost, are only adding to their numbers. Only adding to the swarm. Never able to rest dead men deserve to.

So, we fell back, back towards Molestown. By now I counted only a dozen of us, the rest now brothers of a different sort, belonging to cause that means nothing to the old gods or the new gods or fucking lords of light.

We spend a day and a night spent shivering in those burnt-out wrecks, and then he arrives, the King in the North, with an army at his back of wildlings and Northmen. Never been happier to see another man’s face in my entire life.

By the time he arrived it was far too late.

If he’d come a month, a year, earlier, it would have been too late. Because Jon would have done the same as me had he been there. He would’ve opened the gate for his brother, too. Because that’s the kind of man he is.

I should have kept that bloody gate shut, should have let the boy starve, freeze on the wrong side of the wall. I should have watched and waited until the last breath shivered from his blue lips, then sent through a dozen men to build a pyre to turn their bones to ash. Because it was him – aye, for certain, with his wide brown eyes and his stare – that brought the wall and death and hell down upon us all.

Lady Sansa– please, don’t cry… I don’t want to upset you. Your brother: he didn’t know himself, I would bet my life on that. He’s just a boy. But he’s a boy with a mark on him, and the air changed, charged, like it goes before a storm. I felt that shiver like fear up my spine and knew, I  _knew_ , that it was not right.

If you believe that fate is a bugger – and I do – then I would say its having a right good laugh now at stupid men who think that they needn’t trust when they’re gut says something is wrong.

I ignored my gut and the whole North paid for it. First Lord Commander in a thousand years to let the wall fall? Of course it would be me. 

We’re at the camp, fallen back, five days ride North of Winterfell and a raven comes for him. Yeah. A nice-looking, fat black thing from White Harbour that we kill and cook. I guess it was from you m’lady. Whatever it was, whatever you told him, it made his face set, harder than I’ve ever seen it. It was that look that he gets when he knows he’s about to do something noble and stupid and righteous that might just get him killed. I imagine it was about – well- it seems obvious now. Congratulations, m‘lady. Though what kind of world this’ll be when the poor soul is born…

But he didn’t say anything then.

Instead he says, “We lost our last chance.” He was talking about the Wall coming down. I had an inkling then, a fair strong suspicion that it was my own doing, letting his – your – brother through. But I kept quiet. I was silent. I was thinking about that tasty raven pecking his way back and forth on the barrack. Hadn't eaten in days.

He turns his face to the sky, and says, “There’s only one thing that can save us.”

I say, “Please tell me that it’s hidden underneath that cloak.”

He says, “No, a woman with dragons. A Queen.”

Yes, I’d heard of her. Who hadn’t by this point? The Targaryen girl who had escaped the rebellion. Some King fighting another King because of some other rich Lord or other not happy with how rich and easy his life is. It all sounds like that to me, by the time it filters down to us common folk. But every now and again, one of the stories is enough to catch your attention, enough to bloom in your imagination like when you were a child and listening to your nan’s stories ‘round the fireside.

“Dragons. Aye, that’ll do it,” I said. He didn’t respond for a bit and I saw that look, far off again like when he falls into his despairs. Dolorous, they call me? I am until you stand me next to Jon Snow. “Where is she?” I ask.

“Too far,” he says.

“Typical.” At least that got the touch of a smirk from him. He was always is – was – a dour sod.

We fall back again when they come– to Winterfell this time, ready with whole battalions of men ready to join the fray. Or, depending on how you look at it, thousands ready to join the army of the dead.

"We could hold here," I heard the men saying, and brave out the Winter like the things that chased us was no more than a bad fucking snow storm. The larders were full, the wood stocked. We could live in the walls, fed by hot springs, built by Brandon the Builder, forgetting that even his fucking Wall came down in the face of this enemy. But I'll not begrudge them that small hope, unrealistic as it was.

There are real soldiers this time, not many, but a strong garrison with horses and armour and swords and I felt a little bit better to see a man in proper steel.  Knights of the Vale. From my way - yours too m’Lord. There was one of the better Tolletts – tough bloke who used to pal around with my cousins – now a Ser, as shiny as you like.

But as it turns out, that lot were absolutely shit off their horses, and those beasts don’t hang around when they sense the dead coming.

That's a sight to see, I tell you: two hundred horses fleeing into the snows, throwing armoured men shitting in their steel, left and right.

But, I get ahead of myself.

Jon held a council. 

To Ser Davos he said: “Go East.”

To Lord Royce he said: “Go South.”

To me: “Go West.”

To all: “Spread the news, warn the Lords and Ladies and Queens that Winter is here, and that whatever spats and petty wars you want to wage can wait, or there will not be a soul left on Westeros that can claim loyalty to any cause or throne.”

We thought the gods were smiling down on us when the army of foreign men arrived on the dawn. A thousand soldiers, with spears and helms and the hardened stare of killers. The infamous Unsullied. Cockless war machines from Essos, ready to fight on our side. Sent by your good self, m'lady. I thank you.

And of course, that bloody Dragon.

Now, making a fire is a simple thing once you learn how. My father always told me the secret to always having a warm fire, wherever you end up, was respect. Don’t get cocky. Don’t be clever. Don’t take short cuts. Respect the fire, the flames, the kindling, the spark. Maybe he was one of those R’hollor worshipping fanatics, but if he was I’ll never know. All I know is, he wasn’t wrong.

Because when that beast fell from the sky… 

I’ve seen many things. Men still moving that have no right to be. The Others, with their ice-skin and bright blue eyes and their army of corpses. Now, why not a Dragon too?

A Dragon led by a man returned from the dead with half a dozen stab wounds in his chest. Somehow breathing again after spend a day cold on a slab.

He was not the same, not really, not since he came back. The real man died that night in the snow at Castle Black, betrayed by the very Brothers he saved. He died for a cause that wasn’t even his own, for gods that have abandoned us all.

When Jon rose again, he didn’t have to crawl from the earth – thank the gods we didn’t burn him – but still, it was as if he’d been clawed back against his will. Wherever he was. Wherever he went. A good warm place, I hope. One of them after-lives with plenty of buxom women with ready quims (sorry again m’lady, not words I should be using around you. Forgive me). I think Jon was somewhere much nicer that this sorry world. That look of pain when he came back to us, like he was mourning his own death. He would get it when he thought I wasn’t looking. Maybe he thought I wouldn’t see.

I like to think he was with her – that raw, wildling woman with hair kissed by fire. He never spoke about her, never said a word. But I was at the top of the wall that day he dragged her body out beyond the Wall, watched him build her pyre, haul her body atop. It took him nearly an hour to work up the courage to set it alight.

He looked like he wanted to climb on that pyre too. If it weren’t for his honour, his vows, I reckon not even us good brothers would have been able to hold him back.

And here he was again, risking his life again. Such an idiot.

Not even a day after the Dragon Queen's forces arrived, the dead moved on Winterfell.

When that horn goes your heart hammers, your stomach churns up its dinner and you pray it only sounds the once. 

That silence between the second and third blast is cruel.

And there they were standing on the horizon, rotting bodies so thickly packed it was impossible to tell their numbers. The swarm moved, slow at first, marching like a trained military force. Like they were just waiting for the order to charge.

Over the past few weeks, when it’s been cold and all I’ve had is Ghost and whatever he’s hauled in for dinner, I’ve thought a lot about that: how do they know? How? Where does the order come from? They can’t talk to each other. Can't strategize. How do they know when to march? When to stop? When to fight?

It unsettles me more than their hanging, rotting flesh.

It unsettles me almost as much as their icy Generals, those strange creatures on their dead horses, they were stood way back on the crest of the hill. Those unblinking blue stares.

The dead start towards us, passing the marker, and Jon gives the signal – a volley of arrows is loosed setting the barricades alight. At the same time, that great beast Rhaegal is flying in from behind, providing a fiery incentive for any lagging wights.

They are funnelled towards the northern side of the castle, towards us. The Unsullied are outside the walls on the east and west, ready to to herd the dead mean into our trap.

But then the cavalry breaks, both flanks. The brave, noble Knights of the Vale, on their backs and screaming. Some able to hold on as their spooked steads gallop away from the enemy. They were meant to be there to mop up any stragglers, any that might break through the fire, or miss the pits

I’m standing there, with Jon as it happens, feeling the terror creep through the men. “You need to leave,” he says, not taking his eyes from the Night King. Not even flinching. “Now.”

I nodded, I think, then I turned my back and ran down into the courtyard. I had a readied horse with a full pack - and clear instructions for what I needed to do. In fact, I was already in the saddle about to signal to the gatehouse when I made the mistake of looking back. Looking up.

I see him then – him, Tormund and those brave soldiers that fight for the King in the North - their silhouettes against the fading daylight.  

Jon Snow: strong and stoic Lord Snow (never a crack in that lads face, even with a thousand, thousand dead men running full tilt towards him). I understand why he walked away from the Nights Watch, why he thought his vow fulfilled, but I never thought I would hate him for it. 

He gives a signal to the archers and another volley of lit arrows flies-

And I realise I've hesitated just a moment too long. I've missed my chance to get out the gate.

They’re on us.

I hear the thump-thump-thump of skeletons throwing themselves against the walls of the castle. We were worried, before, that they could make a pile of bodies and simply climb the corpses of each other. So we’d dug a moat and filled it with pigs fat and pitch, to give ourselves more time. 

Then I hear this roar...see the dragon fly overhead. I must have dismounted, ran back to Jon.. I'll admit, I can't remember what happened too clearly. All I know is that I'm back on the wall looking down, and dragon fire is consuming the dead and turning everything at the foot to ash. The heat is enough to singe my hair. To burn in my nostrils.

I see Jon, down the line. Someone is shouting that they’ve breached, through a sewer, over the wall, who cares, but the wights are on us and they’re piling in, like a blizzard blowing snow drifts of dead men over the curtain.

I barrel my way along ramparts, shoving dead men aside as I go. My sword is out, though I can't remember drawing it. 

For a minute I lose sight of Jon, I cut off a rotten head, then smash another like a melon with just my elbow against the stone wall. I kick out, hitting nothing, but in the darkness (because somehow they’ve smothered our torches and the sun has dipped below the horizon) I can still hear them. I've ended up somewhere else in my panic, I've fought myself into a dead end, I'm sure of it. 

I get wrenched aside. I think, _well this is it, I'm done for._  But then a door slams, and Jon Snow is breathing hard, eyes wide, gasping, “Edd?” as though he thought I might be one of them. As though it’s hard to tell the difference. If my brown eyes don’t give away how much I’m alive, then there’s little else that will.

It was just a store room by the look of it – full to bursting with grain and pickles and provisions for the Winter. A whole larder packed to the rafters with food that will never be eaten.

“I told you to go!” he hisses, spit flying in my face. I try to nod but his grip is far too strong around my collar. “We need to get the word out.”

I choke out some words to the effect of, “I wanted to be here."

He releases me, throws me back against the huge sack of grain that splits with the force. I remember watching those seeds pour onto the floor, thinking about all the lives they could have saved. But then, the dead don’t need food.

And he says, deadly certain,  _“If I die again, I don’t want to come back.”_

I wanted to grab him, smack him round the face to make him see sense. Try and knock that martyrdom out of him, the miserable git. 

But instead I just nod then ask, “What do we do?”

He’s gone quiet, staring at the floor. “There’s only one thing we can do,” he says. “Open the gates, let them in.”

I tried to protest, to think of a better way. All I could do was stand there like a dying fish, flapping my mouth open and closed. It's likely a good thing I wasn't Lord Commander for long.

“C’mon,” he says, face set. And out of instinct I follow him. We cut our way through the wights, along the wall to the gatehouse. In there we find a garrison of scared soldiers.

The dead are still piling over the walls, some have made it down into the courtyard. I see a man pulled apart, House Glover sigil on his breast.

“Open the gate!”

The men are frozen.  

"Open the gate, now!" he says, and the soldiers start to attention, grabbing for the crank handle. He turns to me. "You need to be on the other side. Go when I say."

I nod, hesitating for only a second (gods, I hope he's proud of me) pelt round the ramparts at full speed, dodging the wights and their grasping bones, until I’m opposite the main gate.

The gate begins to crank, rattling upwards, opening the castle to the enemy. They’re a trickle, then a torrent, of limbs and skulls and rot. 

“Ghost: with Edd,” he shouts, over all the screaming. “Go. NOW!”

It happens so quick I almost miss it, but time has a funny way of moving when your blood is up and your heart’s hammering in your throat, your gut, your fuckin’ eyeballs. Speeding up, sprinting like a hound after a hare, then slowing right down to a trickle so that sometimes it almost feels like you’re frozen, solid like the ice has caught you quick.

The courtyard filling with the dead. The dragon coming round for another pass. Jon shouting “NOW! NOW! NOW!”. Barrels of pitch rolling off the walls, bursting open.

Tormund, losing it, a great big slash to his gut slowing him down, wanting to face death like a free-folk man. He ran into that fray like it were made of tits.

The dragon flying towards the castle, readying another bellow of fire in its belly. The beast roared. I threw myself over the wall into the drifts of snow and ash, knocking the air from my lungs, as Winterfell exploded in flames behind me.

And I did as Jon bid, I fucking ran. I ran with Ghost snapping at my heels, as if the wolf knew he would have to keep me sprinting, my legs heavy, my chest aching. Fast as I could manage through the thick snows. 

I turned, as soon as I dared, as soon as I had fled far enough from Winterfell. I watched the castle melt like tallow. It spread, the wights going up like kindling in the flames. The screams of the living, becoming the silence of the dead. The truly dead.

And I, like a fool – a great fucking fool - I wept and wept, like a howling babe. As if it would do something, as if the gods would intervene at my pathetic begging. As if they gave a shit.

But, of course, the tears just froze on my face.”


	25. The Hollow Mountain

“Burn me,” the Night’s Watchman said through the cracks in his frost-bitten lips, the black stubs that had once been fingers pawing at the ermine fringe of Sansa’s cloak. “Please,” he had begged, “don’t let me become one of them.”

Now his body lay thawing upon a slab in Qyburn’s workroom.

Petyr could not help but stare; the eyes were closed but he had seen the life drain from them in the courtyard. He had seen the shivers cease and the hands go slack. It had happened uneventfully, unassumingly, as natural as the wisp of a cloud passing over the sun on a warm day.

This man had feared a thing that would tear that peaceful, quiet death asunder. A force that defied all known laws to drag the dead back from their rest with cold, hard claws.

He watched as Qyburn busied himself about the corpse — lifting limbs, examining patches of skin, then scribbling at his notes that were already several pages thick.

Petyr ran a surreptitious finger across the nearest empty workbench before bracing his hands against it.

Qyburn rolled out a length of leather to reveal a glinting banner of sharp, steel instruments. All were polished and immaculate like prized weapons.

“You said you have concerns?” Petyr asked, pulling the older man from his distraction, not wishing to be present when he started to slice the body open.

Qyburn looked up as if he had forgotten Petyr was even there. “Yes… I should think…” he paused and laid down a scalpel with a clink. “Our plans, as they are — everything that you have asked is done. But…” He ducked his head and furrowed his brow. “My work is not always greeted kindly by those that do not understand its importance.”

“And my assurances are no longer enough to assuage you?”

Qyburn’s polite smile was thin about the edges. “I… well, that is to say—”

“Daenerys Targaryen may not understand the importance of your work, but I do.” He gestured expansively, like a good and generous Lord. “And those that are in my employ, in my domain, will be under my protection. And without my cooperation she will not win her war.”

“You are right,” he said, nodding obsequiously, “I should leave the politics to those that understand them.”

Petyr felt he was belabouring the sentiment, but let it slide. He was keen to remove himself from the room and the uneasy presence of the corpse.

It bothered him that he could not settle the disquiet in the pit of his gut that at any moment the thing would open its bright blue eyes.

He forced his attention away from the body and to the rest of the room only to find one of the other specimens staring straight back. An eye, pale and glistening held in a clamp. Its pair laid dissected on the table next to it.

He had wondered what had become of the Ironborn warg.

And the cheeky raven that would come to the window of his solar for scraps.  

Qyburn noticed his speculative stare. “I could discern nothing that makes it unique,” he said, voice tinged with disappointment. “Unfortunate. I should have asked Clegane to be less hard on the boy.” He shrugged as if it were the most minor inconvenience, like a dropped flask or a cut finger and returned his attention to the former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch.

“Keep him by Cersei from now on. He is the best deterrent we have against anyone who decides they are loyal to the Lannister cause after all. The guard?”

“Ready and waiting for the signal. I have been sure to stoke their fears.”

“Good. Ser Prestor may fall in line, too.”

“If he does not?”

Petyr shrugged. The man had no value to him; his fate was inconsequential. “Then he does not.”

Qyburn paused and placed his notes to one side. “If she decides to attack I have no more poison strong enough to incapacitate the remaining dragons.”

“Can you not make more?”

“My source is… limited.” Qyburn’s gaze flicked to the body. There was a hunger in the older man’s eyes that Petyr did not like. Not at all.

Edd Tollett was his name; Sansa had said in a voice so brittle it could barely hold the weight of her grief. Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch. A man from the Vale. A man who had dragged himself halfway across the Seven Kingdoms to warn them of what was coming.

 _Burn me. Please._  

“If that is all there is to report?”

Qyburn nodded. “And the body? It would be very useful for me to study—”

Petyr cut him off. “Burn him.”

As he strode from the room, Petyr did not miss the dark, petulant look that settled on the chainless Maester’s face. It mattered little. In a few days he would be dead.

~~~

More news had come in from a scouting party: the Tyrells had parked their army a day’s march away from Lannisport. All fifteen thousand men.

But of course, Petyr had already known that.

It spread through the castle, and in the Golden Gallery the minor Lords of the Westerlands gathered.

On the dais raised at the far end and sitting on an ornate throne with barely concealed impatience was Jaime Lannister. The man attempted to appease his court with Ser Prestor to his right and Qyburn, still the official Hand of the Queen, to his left.

Petyr found a spot to the side and out of notice, keeping one eye on the proceedings and another on his wife. Sansa looked distracted but it was a mask. She would be taking in every word.

The great white wolf sat to attention by her side. The beast was no less unsettling now than when it had been at the beck and call of a man who distrusted him. Sansa’s other, no less intimidating protector, Brienne, hovered behind her in full armour.

“I have two hundred men at arms wanting to know if we are to prepare for a siege or a battle, My Lord,” groused a portly Lord near the front of the assembled gentry. Lord Jast.

A grizzled, sneering lump of man piped up: “I was at King’s Landing. I saw those beasts. It would take her a matter of hours to fly across from the East.”

Ser Prestor pointed a stubby finger at the Knight. “Precisely,” he said, with the calm of a man that has worn successful command, “we are not dealing with traditional defensive tactics. Even a siege would be useless against one of her dragons.”

“Can we not petition the Ironborn for reinforcements?” said another, older, greyer, and likely to break in a moderate wind. “I thought they were our allies.”

“Euron and his men are a rabble; no use at all in organised combat!”

And gone North to plunder, Petyr thought, recalling Edd Tollet’s words. A blessing for his plans as long as they remained there.

“This, more than ever, should be seen as an opportunity to sue for peace,” said another, tiny and moon-faced, and Petyr hoped it was not one of his paid men; he had a reputation for subtlety to maintain. “If what the Lord Commander said is true then we have a common enemy. Better together than divided.”

“Impossible! I can hardly believe it. Old women’s tales.”

“The man was clearly mad!”

In Petyr’s mind the enemy to the North were still ethereal like spindles of ice through fog. Just shadows of a threat growing on the horizon. Every whisper he heard, every slip of information did nothing to crystallise them into being. It was an ephemeral concept, like trying to recreate the moment in his childhood when he had first heard of dragons. That ‘impossible’ was not necessarily so.

They had said all the dragons were gone, too.

Lord Jast spluttered through his quivering jowls. “Then why no word from the North? Why no attack from the Dragon Queen if she is so much more powerful?”

Jaime rolled his eyes. “She is reasonable; an honourable leader,” he said. Then, with a minor hesitation, “I have petitioned her to parlay.”

“Are those Queen Cersei’s words or yours, Kingslayer?” shouted Jast.

There was a general grumble of assent from the crowd.

Qyburn smiled benignly and raised a patient hand. “The Queen is still convalescing. I have hopes that she will soon be fully recovered but until that time, I speak for her,” he said. “And I agree with the Lord Lannister’s reasoning.”

There was a shout: “The armies are coming now! We are all dead if we do not prepare!”

And the room began to tumble into cacophony.

“Call the reserves at Riverrun; we must have a thousand men up there ready to fight.”

“And leave the castle undefended?”

“There is nothing left in the North to defend it from!”

“Apart from the Whitewalkers and a hundred thousand dead men—”

“Hush with your superstitious nonsense!”

“You would cede the last of our acquisitions—”

“A tiff is it?,” said a low voice in his ear. Petyr turned to see Bronn, standing at his shoulder and eyeing Sansa and Brienne. “I wouldn’t let it fester too long. Women get mighty vindictive if you leave them to stew.”

Petyr locked his gaze with the sellswords, “As always, you are a font of wisdom.”

He received a crooked smirk in return.

Jaime’s golden hand slammed down on the ornate arm of the chair silencing the room. “Enough! The army at Riverrun must hold their position! We will parlay with Daenerys Targaryen.”

Ser Prestor flicked his gaze to the Lannister man but nevertheless began to dole out his orders: “Command your men to continue to pool resources and maintain a steady watch  —ground and skies. Send your Knights to my council room to receive their orders.”

The gathering of lesser lords and leftover knights tittered but acquiesced and the Golden Gallery began to clear. The brief light of midday had faded now to long, sad shadows.

He watched as Sansa leant over to Brienne and whispered an instruction in the big woman’s ear. Her blonde hair fell over her eyes with her curt nod, then she straightened and stepped back. Sansa turned her head and caught Petyr’s eye, then with the wolf on her heels, swept from the room.

Red-rimmed and watery, those Tully-blue eyes were drowned in grief and to anyone she would seem the perfect image of a woman caught up in the sorrow of her brother’s death.

He, of course, knew better.

~~~

The godswood. He followed her there like a shadow. For a minute or two he appraised her, kneeling like a silent sister at the base of the tree, lips whispering over the words of her prayer, trembling hands reaching out to press against the bark.

He could not discern where this tableau for his benefit ended and the real grief began.

It was a ritual of sorts; one he had observed and never practiced.

His father’s death had been as the man had lived: dour, impotent and without ornament. Barely worth the time it took to calculate his worth.

He could not remember mourning Catelyn’s death, and that was the closest he would ever come to losing a loved one. There was nothing but a chasm, an emptiness for the longest of times. It occurred to him that it must be rage and it became a fuel to his fervent need to avenge her.

Until. Until his heart seemed to have opened up and all manner of strange things fell in. A girl tumbled out of the fog and into his arms. Ideas of gods and monsters that would have once been obscure and meaningless to the pragmatic coin counter of King’s Landing. Ideas like seeds — like reaching branches of trees with gods’ faces — had taken root.

The girl, too, was nourished by the fertile ground he laid. The forest he had grown. But like some strange and exotic flower grown half in shadow and half in pain, there were poisonous thorns beneath her delicate petals.

Sansa stood, slow, using the tree to brace herself and moved to sit on a stone bench. Beside her, the wolf twitched a fluffy white ear. Her fingers carded into the fur, scratching absently.

When she spoke, her voice had lost every trace of vulnerability, as though through those feigned prayers the gods had taken all the weakness away. “We always seem to end up here, don’t we.”

The tip of her nose was pink like the painting of a maiden. The steel in her eyes betrayed her. That news from the North had galvanised her resolve and she would be formidable in it. Now, truly, she was the heir.

He could think of nothing else to say, so he said what he should, “I’m sorry. For your loss.”

The words felt like lines written by a soft-hearted bard. He moved closer.

“It’s strange,” she said, speaking to the wolf’s furry head, “but a part of me already knew; when he didn’t reply to the letter I sent him.” The other hand came to rest on her stomach, nearly full now.

He had not yet made the world safe for his son to arrive and the realisation struck his throat closed.

Sansa had paid no mind. “The last time we spoke, he was half-gone,” she said. “I think it must have been true. I think he died at the Wall and stayed just long enough to make things right. I wonder what they think of me now.”

There was only silence and the faint rushing of the waves that pounded the base of the Rock a hundred feet below.

“I am sure they would think the same as I,” he said. “They would be proud.”

She turned her head and met his gaze with determination. “If you asked me what she offered, I might tell you.”

He smirked at that, saying nothing at first. Instead he made himself a space next to her on the bench and tried to ignore the low rumble of the wolf. “I think I would prefer your silence to the knowledge that whatever you choose to tell me may be a lie.”

Her eyebrow quirked. “We cannot seem to break this habit; keeping secrets from each other,” she said and sighed. “Even after everything.”

“I expect it is a habit more ingrained in me by now than drawing breath.”

Sansa huffed a laughed, short and bright and sudden. A genuine thing, or real enough. He would steal it and keep it in his grubby fists like a miser.

She played some more with the wolf’s ears and the thing did not even seem to mind. Her other hand still possessed her belly. “Do you think…” The hesitation on her next word could have been carried off in the wind. But she spoke clear, “Do you think that there was ever any chance for us to have that life?”

He spread his fingers and pressed each one deep into his thigh enough to sense the hard cup of bone underneath.

Yes. The story he would tell.

_Well, we shall stay the night in the finest inn. Just you and me in the softest feather bed and a roaring fire..._

And shut away for that briefest of time on their boat. When it felt like they were beginning a journey to another world; one that wasn’t cruel and aberrant, tossing and discarding men like dolls. Even then, warm and safe and rocked like a babe by the sweet sea. Even then he had known it was a fantasy. But it was easy to delude himself, and her, in that safe wooden womb.

“There is still chance yet, sweetling,” he said.

She reached for him. Her delicate hand covered his own, bleeding warmth into his deadened skin.

“Maybe—” she started, eyes cast down at their joined hands. But she did not finish the thought.

He flexed his fingers through her own

It was only when Brienne appeared much later, as the sun was beginning to set behind the parapets, did he finally let go of her hand.

~~~

He had been sitting before the fireplace in his solar for some time, staring, trying to prise his thoughts away from the sticky grasp of his emotions. It would not do at such a crucial time to knot himself up in the threads of his own weaving.

The crackling wood became the walls of Winterfell; hundreds of souls and monsters trapped within the ancient fortification as kindling in a grate. The flames gorged. The King in the North looked over his burning kingdom, knowing he could have done no different, seeing his family home making one last incendiary stand against the Winter.

Across the Seven Kingdoms, fortressed on the edges of the east, Daenerys Targaryen would be pacing her war room, snarling like her beasts and breathing hot vitriol over the great stone map of Westeros that stretched out before her just in reach. And yet the land that was her birth right still defied her to the last.

He pictured each of her court in different shades; the deep, blood-red anger of Dorne; the cool rational hues of The Imp. Olenna Tyrell’s hard, black shroud deadening the Reach. The worn tan of the Dothraki and the sea-salt rusted blade of Yara Greyjoy’s Ironborn faction. And whatever was left of the North as frosty shard of ice, melting away into vapour.

Each was a strand, weaving through the fabric of the Seven Kingdoms, marking past and present, lives and deaths and reigns and slaughters and septs and kings and tombs.

The gods sat at the spindle. And the loom would pivot.

And once again everything would change.

~~~

The knock at the door came without warning.

Sansa had not returned. Petyr had not expected her to.

He rose to answer it, straightening his overcoat as he did so, and found Jaime Lannister staring at him on the other side.

“We need to speak,” he said, amicably enough but there was a hard set to his jaw. He wore his sword.

Petyr sighed. “It is late. Surely the matter can wait until the morning.” Wait until the sun had risen and he could douse his fire along with his vigil.

The Kingslayer rested his golden hand on the door and the other on his sword hilt. “I have something I would like to show you.” Their eyes locked and understanding passed between them that this was indeed how it was to be.

Petyr nodded once and motioned for the other man to lead the way. Whatever ends awaited, it appeared the fates had seemed fit to play this out tonight.

As they descended from the guest down into the foundations of the castle – down into the rock – the Lannister polish began to fade; the tapestries frayed, the floors scuffed with dirt. Fewer servants scurried, fewer sconces lit their passage and the dust reclaimed every surface like a conquering horde. Jaime walked a step ahead in silence.

They took a sharp left into a narrow stairwell, spiralling further down. Every other turn a sliver of moonlight crept through an arrow-slit providing just enough light to keep a steady footing.

“Though I am sure you’re loathe to spoil the grand reveal, you should know that, as a rule, I hate surprises,” Petyr said, regaining his equilibrium in the narrow, turning space by tracing one hand along the inner wall. He regretted not taking the time to pull on his cloak and gloves as his fingers numbed and his breath clouded.

“As a rule, I don’t care.”

Petyr glared at the back of Jaime’s blond head. How easy it would be just to reach out and shove his hands into the man’s back. He could hear the crack of skull on stone, the dull thud of a body rolling down the steps. How easy it would be just to take the dagger at his belt and plunge it into the exposed skin above his collar.

The staircase bottomed out.

“This way,” said Jaime and made right.

It was a cold, windowless hallway and at the end sat an ancient wooden door, disused and formidable, a sentry to a hidden place. Jaime heaved it open then, once through, plucked a burning torch from the wall of the corridor and moved ahead, the hard heels of his riding boots clicking away into the darkness.

Petyr threw one last glance over his shoulder and followed, pulling the door shut behind them.

After a short time, Jaime spoke. “Cersei and I used to sneak down here as children.” The flame from the torch cast wicked shadows across his face.

“Where does it lead?”

“The Hall of Heroes. The tombs. She loved to see the faces of the all the Lannisters that had come before us. The great ones. And the not-so-great ones.” He paused. “I just liked the stone knights, their armour. I would stare at them forever imagining the great battles they must have fought. I always loved the stories.”

Petyr could not help but smile a little. “I was fascinated by those tales as a boy, too.”

Jaime threw a wry glance at him. “You know, I do believe that is the first time you have ever told me anything about your past.”

“That is because there is very little to know,” he said, looking straight ahead into the gloom. “Nothing of any interest at least. I would wager that you have already heard about the most interesting event of my youth; it is a story that tends to get around.”

“Yes, the brave little boy who challenged a Northerner for the Lady Tully’s hand and got himself gutted like a fish.” Jaime sounded amused, and in the half-light, Petyr could make out the wisps of a mischievous grin. “I heard they had to scoop your bowels back in before sewing you up like a doll.”

Petyr kept his smile tight. It would not normally have bothered him as familiar as he was with the derision of his betters. But here in the cold, dark, and unfamiliar place, it grated. “You say brave, I say foolish. My story is a cautionary tale to be repeated to other silly little boys.”

“And what is the moral of that story?” Jaime asked without missing a beat. “What are all the little boys meant to learn for your trouble?” he asked.

Petyr paused for a moment and in the quiet there were only their footsteps, the crackle of the torch, the echo of the last word spoken. “Like many things, I suppose it depends on the telling,” he said. “It could be: “choose your battles wisely”, or: “trust your head, not your heart”. Perhaps it is just: “practice your sword every day like a good little soldier or…” He smirked grimly. “…they’ll have to put your bowels back in with a soup ladle.”

Jaime looked away beyond the reach of the light where it caught on cracks in the walls, some large enough for a grown man to squeeze through. “And you – what did you learn?”

It was a fair question. And not one he was liable to answer with the truth. “To never anger a Northerner without an army behind you.”

The other man let out a huff of amusement.

The man had saved his life in King’s Landing and contrary to the opinions of the populace, Jaime Lannister, Kingslayer, was not without honour.

The torch-light caught on something up ahead and out of the darkness a set of large, gold gates emerged. A lion stretched across the threshold as if they had just disturbed its slumber. The flames danced in one gleaming, ruby eye.

Jaime handed the torch over and fished a weighty key from his pocket; this too was ornate but worn around the grip. He slid it into the lock and with a smooth click the gate opened. With a genial wave of his golden hand he motioned for Petyr to go ahead. He could not make out the expression on the other man’s face, but he did not really need to. There were finite paths down here, in the hollows of Casterly Rock.

Petyr did as he was bid and the gate creaked shut. Jaime plucked the torch from his hand. “This way,” he said.

The walls no longer held the neat lines of masonry, but instead were hewn and glistened with moisture. The floor, barely flattened, sloped down towards the distant roar of waves pounding against the cliff base, towards the tireless efforts of the seas to subjugate the land. Gradually the mountain revealed itself as the rock this house was built upon.

“There is a piece that is always missing from that story – your story,” Jaime said, as if continuing a thought he had been mulling on. “It’s always bothered me. How did that ‘foolish little boy’ – no name, no wealth, no skill at all with a sword – end up becoming one of the most powerful men in Westeros? It must be quite a tale.” There was an edge to his voice like an unsheathed sword. Like sharpened claws. “I would love to hear it sometime.”

They rounded a corner and a draft whipped up the edges of his cloak. The flames of the torch struggled for a moment then settled but the light it cast no longer touched the sides of the passage. He reached out blindly into nothing. He could have been falling if not for the surety of the stone beneath his feet.

Jaime went ahead, each step echoing tenfold and upward. Then he touched the torch to a slick pool of oil and the cavern came to life in a rush of fire and gold. Burners ran in thin lines along the walls that tendrilled out to illuminate a series of conclaves that stretched back impossibly far. The Hall of Heroes. The final resting place of every Lannister since the time of [the first men], carved deep into the hill of Casterly Rock. Rows upon rows of armoured statues stood in sentry, guarding each tomb. The ancestors of this mountain extended far into the earth.

In the very centre on a raised platform half a storey high rose a grand sarcophagus, crowned with the stony likeness of Tywin Lannister in repose. Jaime discarded his torch and took the steps up to face his father, one solemn foot in front of the other. Petyr followed.

They stood on either side of the tomb like silent sisters making vigil over a dying man. Up close the sculpture looked rough and unfinished. One cheekbone sported an obvious flaw; a misplaced bevel passed off as a dashing war-wound that had never existed.

“He had it all planned – to rise to greatness no matter the cost, no matter the sacrifice. The Lannister name would be more powerful than they had ever been. A dynasty of Kings with lion’s blood.” Jaime reached out and placed a finger on the pock-marks in the sword hilt. He smiled as if it were a joke. “There has not been gold to have it finished. The mines are empty.”

Jaime’s eyes were fixed on the hardened, ersatz face. Petyr watched him, alert to this turn into melancholy, keeping his other senses sharp. It was a poor place for an ambush; the acoustics of the room would announce any other long before he came within striking distance. But that did not eliminate the steel that sat at the Kingslayer’s hip.

He had always been wary of a man that so often used force before words and words before thoughts. All too often frustration and impatience won out over a well-made plan.

“Your father’s ambition was an admirable trait.”

“Yes.” Jaime pursed his lips. “And perhaps it was his greatest flaw.” He stepped back and fixed his hard, warrior’s stare on Petyr. “Perhaps with too much success he thought himself infallible.”

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, refusing to blink. “But, you didn’t bring me down here to talk about Tywin Lannister, failings or otherwise.”

Jaime smiled. “No, no I did not.” He cast his eyes around the chamber at the statues, at the dead people they protected. “I was always a bit slower than the other boys when it came to anything but a sword. But I catch on eventually.” He began to move around the effigy, running his good hand along the edges of the stone. “I think I said before: how little mind I paid you in King’s Landing all those years ago. Such a clever act. So unassuming and eager to please…” A breath rolled through his broad shoulders, lifting the lion sigil on his chest. His five fingers gripped and flexed as he came to face Petyr only a sword’s length away. Petyr resisted the urge to take a step back. “Then you returned, with Sansa Stark in tow of all people. Rolled over for my sister like a lap dog with your belly exposed. I thought, what kind of man would do that to his wife and unborn child? I would have died for—” He stopped, leaving that one last truth still unspoken. Even now. He frowned. “But the first word you uttered when I pulled you from the ashes of the city was her name.”

Petyr blinked. “I have given you no reason to question my motives.”

“No,” he agreed. “But let’s just say I have learned to pay a little more attention.”

Petyr opened his hands, a gracious gesture. “By all means, enlighten me.”

“You have had free reign to leave, to do whatever you please,” he said and the words began to fall over themselves as he hurried towards his triumph, “ever since Deeps Den, ever since we arrive here. No one would have stopped you. And I realised, there is only one possible reason you would stay so close to the woman who wanted to murder your wife…”

The lamps threw greasy light across the gold and pearls and rubies of the Lannister armour.

“Are you going to kill me?” Petyr asked, affecting calm but his body betrayed him as the sweat began to prick at the nape of his neck. The part of him that was certain, the one that had sat up in his chambers playing out the possibilities of every piece, every move, suddenly halted.

Jaime rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “You are going to help me.”

He let go of a breath. “What are your terms?”

“Safety,” Jaime said, quiet and raw, “for Cersei and me. Exile in Essos. You will never hear from us again.”

Petyr pursed his lips, making a show of his consideration. “I see,” he said, and stretched out his fingers to trace the pauper-rough edges of Tywin Lannister’s tomb. “An interesting proposition.”

Jaime scowled like a petulant child.

“Why would I relinquish my own leverage? Surely you can understand I am in a markedly stronger position to negotiate mine and my wife’s future with my current bargain.”

“You will offer her Qyburn instead,” Jaime said, his eyes gleaming. “His hands are bloodier than even my sister’s. Without him, the Sept of Baelor would still stand. The Dragon would still be alive.”

“A prize a lot less valuable than the usurper and The Kingslayer,” Petyr pointed out.

“Well, there may be another reason why you would be interested.”

Like a final stitch to keep it all from unravelling. And even knowing it would come some weak, young part of him still ached at the certainty.

“Sansa,” he said, steady and calm, but his chest had tightened a little at the certainty; she had gone and not looked back.

Jaime took a step closer, and then another, until they were like lovers only a breath apart. His hand closed over the hilt of the dagger at Petyr’s hip, drawing it out. “If only you had skills at a sword to match those wits,” Jaime said. “You would be a formidable knight.” He hovered the tip of the Valyrian steel for a moment at Petyr’s belly at the fulcrum of his scar. “A shame.”

“Are you threatening her?” he asked.

Jaime raised a brow, stepping back and securing the dagger in his belt. “You assume that I would?” he drawled, pouting like a whore playing coy, but the circuitous line was enough to dull the pinprick of doubt.

Petyr felt confident in his shrug. “Not particularly,” he said, relishing the new space and leaning a deliberate hip against the tomb. “You used a similar tactic on Edmure Tully, I believe, to get him to surrender Riverrun.”

The other man’s frown was deep; he had never spoken to Petyr of this. “It worked,” he said, squaring his shoulders.

Petyr acknowledged this with a patronising nod. “It worked. He knew that you had his wife and child in your custody. He could not take the risk that you would follow through.”

“Then it appears you and Edmure Tully face a similar predicament.”

“Apart from the fact that we both know you are not the man your reputation makes you,” he said, calling the bluff. “So I do not see how our situations are similar at all.”

The doubt crept in like fog across Jaime’s face and Petyr suppressed a smile.

A noise drew Jaime’s attention and both men turned. Leisurely footsteps echoed down the corridor and across the threshold of the chamber. A torch flickered off the walls of the passage and after a moment, Bronn sauntered into the Hall of Heroes with little ceremony.

“Is it done?” Jaime asked.

“Aye, safe as a beggar in a whore house. Her and the Lady Knight.” He paused. “But, there’s another thing…”

Jaime frowned, beginning to ask, but was cut short as Tyrion Lannister took a sheepish step out of the shadow of the doorway.

“Hello, brother.”

Bronn lifted a lazy shoulder. “He insisted.”

It only took a second for Jaime to close his mouth and recover. His good hand went to his brow, pinching it. “ _Why_ in the gods are you even here?”

Petyr watched the exchange with interest. By all accounts Jaime Lannister had a thirst for Imp-blood, but accounts, by their nature, were very often wrong. It appeared a truce had been struck and even in the presence of Tywin’s tomb the brothers still shared a bond.

“Can’t a boy make a pilgrimage home when he chooses?” Any note of Tyrion’s humility had fled as quickly as it had come.

“ _You_ are not meant to be here. You should be on the other side of Westeros persuading Daenerys Targaryen not to incinerate us all!” Jaime said, flinging an exasperated golden hand into the air.

“Ah. Yes,” his brother replied, not making eye-contact. “There has been a necessary change of plans. A minor hiccup.”

“A minor—” Jaime’s face was incredulous. “If you are here then her army is here and we are as good as dead. We have no way to sustain an assault from that force.”

“And nor will you need to,” Tyrion placated. “I will uphold my end of the bargain. It is the least…” Something black like a slip of grief passed between the brothers. No one looked at the stone facsimile of the man on the dais. “…it is the least I can do.”

Bronn shuffled around on his feet. “Right, so is she going to burn us all alive or what? I could really do with knowing whether I need to get my arse out of here.”

Tyrion grimaced. “Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure.” Jaime threw him an impatient glare and he threw up his stubby hands. “Yet! I am not sure _yet_. I needed to buy more time. This was the only way—” He stopped and inhaled deeply. “In two days Daenerys plans to burn this whole place to nothing but a sea stump.”

“Fucking hell,” Bronn growled, “why didn’t you say – I would’ve got on that boat.”

“That’s the point. If I am here, she won’t do it.”

Bronn scoffed. “You’ve a very high opinion of yourself.”

“Perhaps,” said Tyrion, “but so does she. I am the Hand of the Queen, after all. I am… valued. When she finds out—”

“ _When_ she finds out!” Bronn shouted.

“—she will reconsider her plan for absolute destruction. She does not see how heavy it will weigh on her soul.”

There was a moment of absolute silence, nothing but that faint distant crashing of the ocean on the other side of these walls. Jaime studied the floor, eyes lost in the shadows that played across it, absently rubbing his golden hand with the flesh of his left. When he finally spoke, he was muted and serious. “And even after everything Cersei’s done to you, you’re willing to help her? To risk your position with the Targaryen?”

Tyrion’s gaze flickered to Tywin’s likeness. “Let’s not dwell on it too long. I may have a change of heart yet.”

“And how, in all this scheming, do you plan to actually achieve these ends?” Petyr asked.

It was like he had re-corporealized; the three men turned to look at him with varying levels of hostility.

Tyrion smiled. “Why, with your help, of course.”

“You seem to be working under the assumption that I will cooperate.”

Bronn pulled his sword a quarter-foot out. “How about you cooperate and I _don’t_ put a couple of holes in you?”

Tyrion raised his hand and Bronn stayed his sword. “No, Lord Baelish here is necessary if we wish to succeed. And he will help. He knows that not to would risk the one thing that he holds dearer than even his own life.”

“Yeah: gold,” Bronn said as if it were obvious.

“No. Sansa Stark.”

Petyr rolled his eyes. “She is merely a means to an end.”

Tyrion waved his words away as though swatting at an annoying fly. “Yes, yes. The key to the North. The provider of your heir. And whatever else you fed my sister, and I am sure she gobbled it up heartily. Cersei has never been very good at dissembling a person’s true motivations, beyond the obvious that is. But let’s not insult us both by pretending that is the truth of it.”

The Imp met him with a hard, unyielding stare.

Petyr’s blood froze. For a horrible, sinking moment there was a space for Tyrion to let slip the secret shared the last time they had spoken in that tumbling, roiling litter, with his legs bent double as they descended the seaward slope of White Harbour. _You killed a King for her._

A flash of Valyrian steel – one half of the blade that had spilled out his innards twenty years ago, and yes, that would be an irony the gods would relish – and green Lannister eyes crystalline in their fury would be the last thing he saw in this world as he leaked out at the foot of the lion’s tomb.

The Kingslayer hung like a shroud in his periphery.

But the sentence never came. Tyrion waited, the knowing certainty solid in the space between them.

Petyr forced down the granite in his throat, spoke over the heavy roar in his ears. “I fail to see how I could be of any assistance.”

“Yeah, I hate to agree with this twat, but she’s not exactly going to let Cersei walk out the front gate. You’ve already used the only way in or out of this rock that might have been unwatched.”

“Precisely. In fact, I am counting on it.”

Bronn frowned.

“It seems that young Robyn has taken it upon himself to recall his armies and retreat behind the Bloody Gate. I do wonder how he could have gotten such a bold idea, but he is quite adamant that the Knights of the Vale – what’s left of them – are loyal to the ruler of the North. And I am not sure if you are aware, but the North—”

“Currently lacks a ruler,” finished Jaime.

“You have had word,” said Tyrion.

Jaime nodded. “The Lord Commander. He- Yes, there was word.”

“Fucking terrifying word,” muttered Bronn.

The prayer, the plea, dripping from his lips like the perfect distillate of death. _Burn me._ Petyr pushed on. “You wish me to use my influence in the Vale.”

Again, the brothers exchanged a glance. “The natural sanctuary for Cersei’s retreat would be the Iron islands," said Tyrion. "There is a ship ready to sail - a decoy. Instead they will be well on their way east.”

“By the time she realises, it will be too late,” continued Jaime. “From the Vale we will gain passage to Essos. It is the only port that we can be sure is unwatched.”

“But we need you to ensure that Lord Robyn opens the Bloody Gate.”

It was as bald and bold and utterly basic as he had expected. He turned to Tyrion. “And what will happen to you when Queen Daenerys finds out that you helped smuggle her enemy across the line?”

Tyrion put a hand to his breast with a mocking gasp. “I’m touched. I didn’t know you cared.”

“That woman doesn’t have a reputation for being the most forgiving,” conceded Bronn.

“As a matter of fact, I planned to use the very same scapegoat as you,” Tyrion said grimly.

“Qyburn.”

The Imp smiled.

A draft whipped at the fire that webbed across the cavernous chamber, throwing each effigy into a relief so sharp and sudden they came to life grimacing, grinning, shouting. As if recalling their last moment. As if living again for a breath of time.

Petyr considered the other three men. “She is safe?”

Tyrion nodded once. “Perfectly.”

Another gust made the hairs at the nape of his exposed neck prick to attention.

“And do I have your assurance that I will get what I asked for?”

Bronn barked out a laugh. “You’ve got balls Baelish, I’ll give you that,” he said, snorting some more. “You’ll get to walk out of this alive, intact and get back to fucking that young wife of yours – if she’ll even still have you. She left your sorry arse here pretty easily if you ask me. Very little threatening required—”

Tyrion shot Bronn a concerned look. The sellsword, oblivious, carried on.

“— was like rescuing a damsel in distress. Made me feel like a proper knight.” He puffed out his chest. “You’re losing your edge – thinking I wouldn’t recognise the same bloke from the Inn? Asking me all them questions, telling me things that you know’s wrong. I’ve had you clocked this whole—” He stopped as if hitting a wall, eyes wide. “Fuck.”

Tyrion’s frown flattened into a smirk, his head tilted. “Oh, well done.”

Petyr raised his eyebrows innocently.

“What?” asked Jaime, looking from man to man.

“It appears, my dear brother, that we have all been fooled,” Tyrion drawled tightly, but his eyes sparked with interest. “I believe our Lord Baelish here, is exactly where he wanted to be. And, more to the point, exactly where he wanted _me_ to be.”

“I don’t—” Jaime started but was cut off by Bronn’s harsh shush.

The sellsword cocked his head like a dog. The flames flickered again. Petyr craned his neck, seeking out a distant hollow sound that had not been present before. The four men stilled, listening. It was faint, but it was unmistakable.

“Who..?” whispered Tyrion but did not finish his thought. Instead the rattle of armour, the footfalls of men – two or twenty, it was impossible to tell – resonated down into the chamber. Someone was marching towards the Hall of Heroes.

“Shit.” Bronn made to pull his sword but Jaime held out his hand.

“Your doing?” Jaime sneered at Petyr.

Petyr shook his head but said, “Let me speak to them.”

The Lannister household were in his pocket and so too were any men that may have given the order to watch his movements. The soldiers filed through the door, a pouring of metal and red and gold. Clegane stood a head above the rest at the rear and it took him a moment too long to realise why this might be wrong.

The guard parted to reveal Qyburn and his sickly, gleeful grin.

Petyr only managed to catch Tyrion’s eye, attempting to convey that he had no foreknowledge of this turn of events, before swords and spears were lowered at each of them.

“My Lords, you are all under arrest for high treason.” The smile stretched wide. “By order of the Queen.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many effusive thanks to beta and cheerleader extraordinaire [Ophelia_Raine](https://0pheliaraine.tumblr.com/), who got me firmly back in the saddle. Really couldn't have done this without her. Go check out her wonderful stories [here](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ophelia_Raine/pseuds/Ophelia_Raine)


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